San Diego, CA (special) -- Ambassador Yossi Gal, Israel's envoy to The Netherlands, remembers how up until five years ago Arab diplomats wouldn't acknowledge the presence of an Israeli diplomat, even if an Israeli and Arab were the only two people in an elevator on the way up to a reception in some foreign capital.

Relationships have improved considerably since the famous "handshake" on the White House lawn Sept. 13, 1993 between then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat, Gal said in San Diego at a reception June 23 sponsored by Israel Bonds.

"Today I am close friends with most of the Arab ambassadors who are stationed in The Hague, even ones from countries that don't have diplomatic relations with us," the ambassador added in a HERITAGE interview held at the La Jolla home of Bernard Lewis. Before being assigned to the Dutch capital, Gal had participated in Israel's negotiations both with the Palestinians and with the Jordanians. As an ambassador, he and his Jordanian counterpart not only have become friends, but together they try to interest the Dutch government and businesses in investing in joint Jordan-Israel projects that will strengthen the peace, Gal said. "Israel and Jordan are building a joint airport to serve Eilat and Aqaba," Gal said. "Right now you have two airports three kilometers apart. And I think in things like this Israeli and Jordanian ambassadors in Europe can help, and yes, we are doing that."

Ambassador Yossi Gail

Israel also encourages The Netherlands in its efforts to help strengthen the Palestinian economy. "They, like us, believe that the better the economic infrastructure is in the Palestinian territories, the better a chance there is for peace to be successful," Gal said. "This is in the interest of the Palestinians, this is in the interest of Israel, and Europe."

The Dutch have been "very active in the building of a harbor in Gaza for the Palestinians," the ambassador said. "They are also very helpful in the Palestinian effort to put in an airfield in Gaza by giving away Dutch aircraft."

Gal was among the first Israeli diplomats to negotiate with Arafat at his headquarters in Tunis shortly after the Palestinian leader's Sept. 13, 1993 meeting with Rabin at the White House.

"These are the sort of memories that you carry with you for life," Gal said. "There were three of us who flew to Tunis (Yossi Beilin and Shlomo Gur were the others), and at that time we couldn't fly directly from Israel because the Tunisians would not allow a direct link between Israel and Tunisia.So we had to fly to Malta, and then from Malta to Tunis.

"We landed in Tunis and we were immediately surrounded by bodyguards- our bodyguards and Tunisian bodyguards and we were taken to the Hilton in Tunis. And they told us 'you just wait and you will get word from Arafat about the exact time of the meeting.' 

"With Arafat then, even today, you never get an exact time. They said 'sit in the lobby, wait, someone will get to you.' So we sat there in the lobby; it was very late at night, maybe about 1 a.m. You sit there; you keep thinking about how will I feel about my meeting with this man. You always have these butterflies in your stomach; you are torn.

"And then after 1 o'clock someone comes and says, 'the chairman will see you' and we are put into a limousine and we drive through the back streets of Tunis together with our security guys and we go to meet Arafat. When we get to his office, our security guys ask us to stay in the car and, at that point, in the car, I watch this scene that I will never forget, Israeli security and Palestinian security speaking in Hebrew, coordinating amongst themselves how to protect our meeting. And I was thinking, 'these are guys who used to kill each other. ' Anyway, they finalized this and we were asked into Arafat's office.

"The first five minutes, you know, you really don't understand what is going on around you, but I have to admit that five minutes into the conversation all the butterflies disappeared, and we felt we were talking to someone who was interested and who was very nice personally to us. We were offered something to drink, and we asked for Arab tea and he was very nice saying, 'oh, don't put sugar, put honey in the tea,' and he offered to do it for us. Five minutes into the actual conversation, we felt that 'yes, he was our enemy for many years, but he is the guy to
make peace with.'"

As an ambassador in The Netherlands, Gal's official duties do not offer such high adventure but,  of course, they are important. He said he has four priorities in that European capital. 

One is to "maintain the very special relationship beteween Israel and The Netherlands," he said. "There are a lot of reasons for that relationship. The Holocaust is one, the fact that 85 percent of the Dutch Jewry went to the camps without returning. It also has to do with the Dutch being in the past a very religious country, Calvinist by tradition, very oriented to the Bible. We want to maintain this special relationship.. There is a new generation in Holland now, and it is a generation more European than Dutch."

Trade is another aspect of the bilateral relationship. "We sell the Dutch everything," Gal said. "We are selling $150 million in flowers--it sounds like selling ice to the Eskimos in winter--but we are selling them flowers as well as the most sophisticated software." The Dutch, meanwhile, are selling to Israel trucks and machinery.

Another priority, said the ambassador, is to maintain contact with the Jewish community in The Netherlands. "I strongly believe that every Israeli ambassador should put the Jewish community where it exists very high on his agenda, which means going to every community, visiting the synagogues, and speaking to all different organizations."

Fourth, he said, he has been involved in promoting cultural exchanges between the two countries. Some of Israel's best known writers, including Amos Oz, gave lectures in The Netherlands, which were well attended. The Netherlands has sent musicians and orchestras to Israel.