FBIS Coverage of the Middle East Peace Talks: 1977 December

PPROVED FOR RELEASE CIA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS DIVISION AR 70-14 13NOV201
V. 29 Dec 77 N 14 ISRAEL
Sitting here are a former prime minister, fog ° iui :ns ::.. floi5,. mi.niLsrs, an
they know. They were occasionally called on to scrutinize a plan and had to say no.
For the first time there is an Israeli plan. The entire world is arguing about the
Israeli plan, favoring or opposing it. Washington is favorable and Moscow negative.
If the representative of the Soviet Union [referring to the RAKAH representative] allows
me to say this, then it is clear to me that this plan is rejected in Moscow... .
[MK Peres interrupts asking: The government's plan for a withdrawal to the international
border in Sinai, is it a new and.Israeli plan?]
[Begin] Sir, I am talking about our peace plan, and, as Abba Eban rightly said, you
were not a cabinet member yet then [in June 1967]. It is true that on 17 June 1967 such
a plan was submitted with the approval of all the cabinet members, including me. This
is true. Well, then, you say not an Israeli peace plan. This is an Israeli peace plan
for sure. .How can you add: with pains, anguish and anxiety? This is an Israeli
peace plan, as I have said before. It is rejected in the Soviet Union and accepted in
Washington. I know the power of the Soviet Union. I know it from personal experience.
Nevertheless, I will openly say: the U.S. support for our plan is more important for
us than the opposition of the Soviet Union, with all due honor to this big Eastern super-
power. This holds true for Britain, and maybe also for other European countries. .
There is a difference [in our status]--and this happened in the last 2 weeks, not
before--and we should not disregard it. We were isolated in Europe and in the United
States, and today we are isolating somebody else. This is an extremely important
development which we should not ignore. Ultimately, what is the status of the Libyans
even if the Soviet Union supports them? What is the status of the Libyans even in
Cairo? We are talking about peace, about a peace treaty.
I will now tell you about two moments in the Ismailia conference when I was ready to
say to the Egyptian president non possumus and to ask my friends to be prepared to
return home. This is also a lesson for the future. Therefore, I will tell the
Knesset these things today. At one point we were presented with a proposal and were
asked to accept it. The proposal was: Israel undertakes to withdraw from Judaea,
Samaria, Sinai, the Golan Heights and the Gaza Strip, in accordance with the intro-
duction of Resolution 242, which reads: The Security Council, emphasizing the
inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war [last 13 words in English].
The argument was dramatic. I explained to the Egyptian president: This introduction--
what is its real meaning? If it spoke of all kinds of war, including defensive war--
how does the world accept and recognize, especially after Helsinki, the fact that the
Soviet Union is in Konigsberg and calls it Kaliningrad when the Soviets had never been
in Eastern Russia before and the 'act that Poland stands along the Oder Neisse rivers,
hundreds of kilometers west of their old border when the last time they were there
was 850 years ago? How can this be explained? I said, and rightly, since these were
defensive wars, and when a defensive war is waged there are also territorial changes
in the peace treaty.
We, I told the president, are in Sinai today totally legitimately. Everything depends
on the peace treaty and its conditions, namely, on the agreement. However, our
presence there is entirely legitimate. Resolution 242 does not oblige Israel to
make such a withdrawal. Therefore, we will not sign this proposal. It is unacceptable.
Under no circumstances will we put up with, it. We set this opinion of ours against
the other and were ready to say: If this is how things ar'e, it is impossible to con-
tinue. But what happened? It was agreed that this clause be deleted from the joint
statement. It would not exist. Then we could continue and prepare a joint statement.