State Department spokesman Robert J. McCloskey said today that the new Arab Federation’s unity statement last Friday was “equally unfortunate in the same sense about which we commented about Minister Dayan’s statement last Friday.” McCloskey said then that Israel Defense Minister Moshe Dayan’s remark last Thursday that Israel should act like a “permanent” or “established” regime in the occupied Arab territories was “harmful” and “inconsistent” with United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 of Nov. 22, 1967, the basis for Middle East negotiations. On Friday the leaders of Egypt, Libya and Syria agreed that “There will be no peace or negotiation with the Zionist enemy, no yielding an inch of Arab territory, no bargaining on the Palestinian cause.” The statement echoed the hard-line Khartoum resolution adopted by Arab states after the Six-Day War four years ago.
McCloskey said of the new Arab declaration: “They talk about not negotiating with Israel and not negotiating on the Palestine question. In our view that is inconsistent (with Resolution 242), which the Egyptian government told us, as well as Ambassador (Gunnar V.) Jarring (the Mideast intermediary), it accepts.” That resolution, McCloskey continued, “calls for an agreement between the parties for a just and lasting peace,” and “it is difficult to see how the parties can move toward a peace settlement in accord with the Security Council resolution if they talk about only what cannot be accepted.” Therefore, he concluded: “We hope both sides start thinking and talking more in terms of what they can accept.”
The State Department’s sharp criticism came as the Egyptian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. Hafez Ismail, left Cairo on a three-week tour to Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway. Iceland and France to obtain support for Egypt’s position in the upcoming General Assembly, which opens Sept. 21. (In Jerusalem yesterday, Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban said Friday’s Arab statement was in effect a rejection of Security Council Resolution 242.) Regarding the Egyptian-Libyan-Syrian federation itself, McCloskey said the United States considered it a matter for those three governments and their people to decide. “We have never objected to such efforts at regional groupings if they reflect the popular will,” he observed. (Former Egyptian Vice President Aly Sabry, with 90 other defendants was charged in Cairo yesterday with high treason. Sabry has opposed the federation.) Asked to comment on the Big Four ambassadors’ draft agreement for easier access between East Germany and West Berlin, McCloskey said the draft was “not necessarily a barometer for the Middle East.” He explained that he would have “difficulty establishing a link between Berlin and the Middle East,” even though the same Big Four are involved in negotiations on both issues.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
