FBIS Coverage of the Middle East Peace Talks- 1978 September

PPROVED FOR RELEASE C ISTORICAL DIVISION AR 70-14 1 OV201
. V. 26 Sep 78 N 2 ISRAEL
Mr Chairman, the decisive importance of the agreement with Egypt lies in the fact thatthis time we committed ourselves to sign a peace treaty. No more-partial agreements.No more interim agreements, in which the state of war remains as it is, but a peace -treaty, which, in accordance with well known international models, generally beginswith the following sentence: The- state of war between the two countries has come toan end. This is the difference; and it has great importance. It means the completenormalization of relations, including the establishment of diplomatic relations,economic and cultural relations, the ending of the economic boycott, free movementof people and goods. [indistinct heckling) -
Security experts determine and confirm that we have achieved security conditions whichare sufficient and satisfactory for the State of Israel through the setting of de-
militarized zones, zones of thinning out of forces, early warning systems. It is,of course true that there is the problem of the airfields and in this regard a changeoccurred in the agreements as they were signed concerning the original peace programwhich we presented last December. We then proposed that, of the three airfields inSinai--'Eytam, 'Ezyon and Ofira--two of them would.be transferred to civil administra-tion and one--the reference was. to 'Ezyon--would remain in the hands of the IsraeliAir Force even after the transition period. This time, with regard to those airfields,nothing helped and the Israeli delegation gave its agreement to transferring toEgyptian civil administration all three airfields established in Sinai. In contrastto this, we were given a promise that, with the help of our friends, the Americans,two airbases would be established in the Negev. From the strategic aspect, from theaspect of our security, whether southward or northwest, this makes practically nodifference. The geographical .distance between the existing airbases and those whichwill be established is nothing but a few dozen km and in our times, -with supersonicplanes, the difference in defense capability is practically nil. It was determined
that we wi1l not leave the existing airfields as long as there -are no new, alternative,functioning airfields. -
President as-Sadat and I agreed that, despite the fact that we committed ourselves in.writing to reach the signing of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel within 3months, we would try to shorten the period of time to 2 months. Therefore, I cansay today, and I have a complete commitment, since. the.matter depends on both sides,that it may be--there is hope--that by the end of the year the peace treaty betweenthe two countries will be signed. [heckling)
I did indeed say that it is so important--I stated a fact. I would ask MK Shamir -to permit me to continue, I hope he will not repeat the precedent. [laughter;
applause] *
The most painful matter concerns our settlements in Sinai, in the north and in the. -
south. There have been those who have claimed that we gave them up even before
President. as-Sadat's visit to Jerusalem in order to permit that visit. Mr Chairman,
I am stating from the Knesset podium, with all the responsibility of remarks madefrom it, that this claim has no shadow of truth in it and we have'written proof of
this and I am even amazed that serious people, who have in the past fulfilled central
national posts, permit themselves to spread such malicious slander. There are alsothose who claim that we did not fight for these settlements at the Camp David con-
ference.
[Interruption--The conceding of the sovereignty over Sinai and. the .granting of the
sovereignty to Egypt clearly meant that this was the removal of the settlements,
except -that you did not want to recognize this and you began sellingplots in Yamit
instead.] i
I asked for no .heckling .and I would ask the former minister of police to permit me to
continue speaking., [more interruptions]