Eshkol Sees Better Prospects for Peace Now; Assails Kosygin’s Speech at U.N.

Prime Minister Levi Eshkol said today that the situation in the Middle East presented better prospects for peace, after Israel’s victory in the war, than ever before. He added the Cabinet hoped to report to Parliament on the postwar situation within a month.

At the same time, the Premier declared that the Soviet Union was trying to turn the clock back by giving unlimited diplomatic support to the Arab rulers and by re-supplying Egypt with weapons. The Premier described the speech by Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin before the special meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on Monday as “aggressive and inimical to Israel.”

Mr. Eshkol said the Soviet Premier’s comparison of Israel with the Nazis was “frightening and shocking” and he added that “it is difficult to find many wars in which the civilian population came to so little harm” as did the Arab civilians “because of careful and purposeful direction” of Israeli military efforts.

Gen. Moshe Dayan, the Defense Minister, substantiated Mr. Eshkol’s statement on the Arab civilian treatment in a statement he presented to Parliament today in reply to a motion by Meir Wilner of the New Communist Party, who charged that the Arabs were being expelled and their homes destroyed. The New Communist Party, comprised of one Jew and two Arabs, was the only Knesset faction to disapprove of the war. The other Communist Party faction supported it.

Gen. Dayan declared that neither Israeli aircraft nor ground artillery bombed civilians in Cairo, Damascus or Old Jerusalem, nor any other Arab town. He added it could easily have been done. He said that in Hebron, there was not a single civilian casualty and that in Jenin, where Israeli and Jordanian troops fought in the streets, only two civilians were hurt.

Speaking at Sharm El-Sheikh yesterday, Premier Eshkol said he was prepared to meet with “any and each” of the Arab leaders to discuss a peace settlement of the Arab-Israeli issues. Israel, he said, would enter such discussions “not from a position of strength but from the point of view of reaching a settlement that would benefit the entire area.” Mr. Eshkol stated he was ready to meet particularly with Mr. Nasser and Jordan’s King Hussein, “or any other Arab leader, on land or sea, any time, anywhere,”