All is remembered

For thirty long years the empty building in Zmaj Jovanova street, which had formerly housed the embassy of Israel in Yugoslavia, was gaping. The young Jewish state acquired this building as a gift of the Association of Jewish Municipalities of Yugoslavia in the far-off year of 1948. They moved out of it nineteen years later, when Yugoslavia, at the height of the Israeli-Arab war in 1967, had severed diplomatic relations with Israel. (We shall remember that SFRY was then the leader of the non-aligned movement, where Israel didn't rate all that well.)

SFRY remembered Israel again towards the eclipse of non-alignment and in the dusk of its own collapse, when Yugoslavia was no longer the leader even in the mountainous Balkans. The government of Ante Markovic restored diplomatic connections with Tel Aviv when it was too late, and those who followed after Ante Markovic, between the second and third Yugoslavia, fell under the brunt of sanctions prior to having been able to restore relations to their initial stage.

Three decades after the diplomatic connections had been severed, in the middle of December of last year, David Sasson finally arrived in Belgrade, the first Israeli ambassador to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He did not return to 34 Zmaj Jovanova street, on whose facade traces of decades-long negligence, dilapidation and indifference are apparent by a mere glance. At the small ceremony organized upon that occasion, David Sasson had ceremoniously presented the representatives of the Jewish Community in Yugoslavia with the keys of the long-ago donated house in Dorcol. As he says, the authorized Israeli bodies have assessed that the former residency does not meet basic security and other preconditions of the Israeli state when evaluating embassy headquarters. At this moment the old/new house owner, the Association of Jewish Municipalities in Yugoslavia, does not know what to do with the dilapidated, long-ago abandoned building either.

In the meantime, David Sasson is keeping office in the Intercontinental hotel and with a characteristic smile which encompasses more than he openly expresses, answers VREME's question as to whether he sees anything symbolic in the dilapidation of the former embassy, in lost time and missed chances of the two states - Yugoslavia and Israel. This fifty-nine year old career diplomat (he served in Cyprus and Paris, and he arrived in Belgrade as ambassador following the completion of his ambassador's mandate in Athens where, as he says, due to persistence and self-sacrifices, he turned Greek policies from anti-Israel to pro-Israeli, and acquired the nickname and reputation of "bull") likes to stress great similarities between Israel and Yugoslavia as countries whose geographic position in the world's critical regions have, by a large measure, determined their history. "States can change a number of things, but they can't change geography. I speak of 'national mentalities' with understandable reserve as a Jew, yet I believe that to be a citizen of countries such as ours understandably encompasses a special character development. I also believe that it stimulates our citizens to openness since they have a chance to come into contact with other cultures and nations, they are in the position to compare, they aren't closed..."

It isn't enough to say that the new Israeli ambassador to Belgrade does not shy away from topics such as Israel's relations with the former YU republics. He readily emphasizes his and other Israeli officials' convictions that his state has moral obligations towards the Serbs, stressing that Israel remembers everything, forgets nothing and holds to its tradition maybe more than others.

VREME: Why would you have moral obligations towards the Serbs?

SASSON: Because in Yugoslavia, relatively speaking - I do not encompass the destiny of the Jews in Croatia in it - more Jews were rescued than in other European countries.

More than in Bulgaria?

Bulgaria is a completely different story. The Bulgarians were rescuing Jews in Bulgaria yet had sacrificed them in Macedonia. God bless them for rescuing the Bulgarian Jews, however they applied different standards for the Jews in Macedonia.

While speaking of the significance, specific weight and overall relevance of historical memory in the political and trade relations of the contemporary international states, Sasson stresses:

"We have always approached the Serbs with an open heart, we have never been hypocritical towards them. We have always approached them with good intentions... However, the Serbs had officially preferred the Arabs, the Muslims, because they believed that was the direction in which the world was headed. Unfortunately for you, you had learned the hard way what we had learned fifty years ago. During the last four years, you mastered this lesson in a painstaking and hard way."

What exactly is the lesson we have learned in the last four years?

I do not wish to be more specific than I was. And I believe that you understood me perfectly. If you turn off your tape recorder, I will explain.

In case I am not mistaken, the last thing that Israel would wish for would be to create an impression among the international public that it wishes to build relations with this or any other country on the basis of a mutual enemy, be it the Arab or the Muslim enemy.

No, and there is absolutely no need for it. Anyway, the Muslim world of 800 million souls does not have one face only, and we have to be very careful and cautious when we are describing the Muslim world. Israel wishes to build relations with other countries on the basis of all that is positive and constructive. The foundations should be built on the basis of all that we stand for and not on the basis of all that we disagree with. I could now make a long list of topics in which Israel and your country are in accord and all that they could jointly work for. I came to this country at a very exciting moment. There are not many diplomats who are given the chance to open a new embassy in a European country, and on top of that I was lucky to arrive at the time when this country is undergoing a revolution. All the diplomats wouldn't agree on that, in light of terminology, however it seems to me that this is a kind of revolution, a kind of battle of diverse social groups for their own future and stakes in the future of the country, for a way in which they wish to manage their own lives. This is a peaceful revolution, which is unfolding in a beautiful, civilized and cultural way.