Meir’s Knesset Speech Seen As Conciliatory

Premier Golda Meir’s speech to the Knesset yesterday was welcomed by Israelis and apparently found favor with most Arabs on the West Bank and inside Israel proper, including East Jerusalem, political observers said here today. They said the obvious intention of the speech was to establish Israel’s sincere desire to negotiate with Egypt without prior conditions and it accomplished that without in any way compromising Israel’s positions. The Premier indicated that no conditions stood in the way of talks if Egyptian President Anwar Sadat would agree to them. She made no mention of future frontiers. It was the approach favored by most Israeli Arabs and West Bankers, the sources said.

The Premier administered a rebuff to United Nations mediator Gunnar V. Jarring in her brief reference to his five-year effort to set peace negotiations in motion in the Middle East. “Up to this day, the United Nations representative has not revoked the validity of his memorandum of Feb. 8, 1971 and the government of Israel has no intention of altering the reply given on Feb. 26 of that year,” she said. The Jarring memo asked Israel for a prior commitment to return to its pre-June 1967 borders and was flatly rejected by Israel.

NO CONTROVERSY IN KNESSET

Although the Knesset debated for four hours following the Premier’s speech, no one quarreled with her government’s policies and Mrs. Meir’s speech appeared to have won the support of most of the House.

Uri Avneri, of the Haolam Hazeh faction, often an outspoken critic of government policies, advised the Premier to follow Sadat’s example and “kick out” some of her advisors, presumably to expedite peace talks. Most other MKs who spoke during the debate echoed Mrs. Meir’s warning that the reduction of Soviet personnel in Egypt did not mean an end to the Russian strategic presence in that country. Prof. Yitzhak Klinghoffer of Gahal was convinced that the Soviet pull-out does not mean the end of Russian influence in the Middle East and claimed that peace talk by Egypt’s Minister of information was “pure propaganda.” (See special news analysis on Page 4.)

Moshe Carmel, of the Labor Alignment said, however, that the withdrawal of Soviet advisors from Egypt could produce a new era of Egyptian-Israeli relations. But he said “we were bitterly disappointed by President Sadat’s bellicose speech.” Zevulun Hammer, of the National Religious Party, urged the government to establish more Jewish settlements in the occupied territories and warned it to be wary of American pressure in case the US tries to fill the vacuum in Egypt left by departing Russians. Shmuel Tamir of the Free Center faction warned his fellow MKs not to be lulled into complacency by the ouster of Russian advisors. “It is just as far from Odessa to Alexandria as it is from Alexandria to Odessa,” he said. observing that the Russian advisors could be returned to Egypt as speedily as they were withdrawn.