FBIS Coverage of the Middle East Peace Talks: 1977 December

PPROVED FOR RELEASE CIA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS DIVISION AR 70-14 13NOV201
V. 28 Dec 77 N ]1 ISRAEL
Peres Speech ,
TA281133Y Jerusalem Domestic Television Service in Hebrew 0846 GMT 28 Dec 77 TA
[Speech by Labor Party Chairman Shimon Peres in the Knesset--live]
[Text] Mr Speaker, honored Knesset: The joint hope of this house, a hope which bridges
gaps, that the peace issue is to be found at the top of the mountain has not lost ,
altitude, is not lost. It will continue to climb to its target at the top.
We approve of the governmentrs peace policy despite our dissatisfaction with certain
parts of it. We will stand by those who have hope and not by those who sow bitterness.
I wish to begin my remarks w.ith words of esteem for the government and the prime
minister with respect to certain issues, despite its being difficult--and I will use
a term by Anatole France, a quote--in these meetings to differentiate between the fruitsof wisdom and what luck brings--I must say that the government has devoted itself to
both of these and to their characteristic tempo. The prime minister did not hestitate,
despite the dangers of being hasty, to pour political fuel into the vehicle of events
and to travel to the shores of the dangers of war, to the shores of risks that peace
demands. There is no point in thinking that tomorrow it will be easier to conduct peace
negotiations. If not now, then when--this is the question that fits the issue of peace
efforts.
I alsoexplicitylypraise the prime minister's willingness to make decisions, even to
deviate from a number of assumptions that he held true in the past, to propose
concessions, to agree to compromises, to outline withdrawals, and all this aimed at
creating a background for the possibility of an agreement. I know that this is not easy
and certainly involves pain. However, the truth must be told to the people: There is
no way to achieve peace without compromises and without concessions. In war one has to
consider the other sidet s army and one has to aspire to neutralize it. In peace one
has to consider the aspirations of the other side and to try and meet them. For us
it is both difficult and necessary,
We as the opposition--and as a responsible opposition--will not criticize the government
for its willingness to follow the path of compromise and concessions. We will not
criticize it for its willingness to concede territory, to ignore previous positions, to 1
send out feelers through negotiation so the egg of .dialog will hatch a dove of peace.
Mcreover,despite our criticism of parts of the governmentts plan, we will not pose
parliamentary difficulties in the path of it8 implementation since we know that the
alternative, at this moment, to the government t s plan is not our plan but the failure
of the negotiations. This is something that we do not want.
Mr Speaker; for 30 years, as President as-Sadat said in his speech to the Knesset, Egypt
tried to ignore Israel and relate to it as an imaginary state. He said that we refused
to say hello, we refused to shake hands and it would be a fiction to say that the change
in the attitude toward peace took place in Israel and not in Egypt. To the best of myknowledge there is no rejectionist front in Israel. The rejectionist front is a totally
Arabic front. Mr Begin aspired, as did all previous prime ministers, to meet with the
Egyptian president. The change took place with the Egyptian president and not with the
Israeli prime minister, and we credit the Egyptian president for this. We have great
esteem for his welcome initiative. However, while the Egyptian president is demanding
concessions from us, we have to stress to him that without concessions on his part, too,
it will be hard to achieve peace. The peace negotiations in the past met with the same
difficulties that it is meeting with today--not on the geographical and political issues
between us and Egypt but on the link in Judaea and Samaria.