The Arab League's U.N. envoy Friday said Israel's new hard-line government was a ``blessing in disguise'' and said the right-wing adiministration might force the United States to get tougher with its ally. Clovis Maksoud, permanent observer of the 22-nation Arab League, said the government, which will consist of acting Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's right-wing Likud bloc and smaller ultranationalist and religious parties, could force Congress to reexamine its relationship with Israel. Shamir's government, which still needs parliamentary approval, has vowed to expand Jewish settlement in the occupied territories, and has indicated it is prepared to use harsher measures to quell the 30-month-old Palestinian uprising against Israel's rule of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The United States has called Jewish settlements an obstacle to peace and has tried to encourage Israel to open peace talks with a Palestinian delegation. ``I hope formation of this new Cabinet will jolt the U.S. administration and the U.S. Congress to come back to their historical sense of fairness in the Middle East,'' Maksoud said after a strategy meeting with Arab representatives. ``This can be a blessing in disguise if it awakens the U.S. administration from permissiveness to allow Israel to proceed with the defiance of the international community,'' he added. Maksoud also criticized the United States saying it has shielded Israel from international censure by using its veto in the U.N. Security Council. On Thursday, the United States blocked an Arab-sponsored Security Council resolution calling for a U.N. team to visit the occupied territories and investigate allegations of Israeli abuses of Palestinian human rights. Arab states plan to reintroduce the measure.
