Israeli Foreign Minister Yigal Allon arrived here today for a six-day visit to the United States that appears more concerned with political and economic matters than military problems, but that latter item is not excluded. Amid wide speculation that significant diplomatic maneuvering is underway involving the Israeli-Egyptian frontier, Allon will meet tomorrow with Secretary of State Henry A, Kissinger for a morning session and a working lunch that possibly may extend into late afternoon.
Allon will lunch with Senate Foreign Relations Committee members at the Capitol on Tuesday. Afterwards he will confer with Treasury Secretary William Simon and dine with him Tuesday night. Allon also will meet with newsmen here before he goes to New York to address a gathering on Thursday arranged by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. He is not slated, however, to meet with Pentagon officials. He will return to Israel next Friday.
Allon was met at the airport today by Kissinger. Neither provided any details about the subject of their talks. Kissinger told a press conference yesterday that he had no immediate, plans for talks with Egyptian officials following his talks with Allon. There had been some speculation that Egyptian Foreign Minister Ismail Fahmy would come to Washington after Allon leaves.
PERIOD OF QUIET DIPLOMACY IN MIDEAST
The Secretary told the press conference that the Middle East conflict was now in a period of quiet diplomacy and said the U.S. is seeking to provide the Soviet Union with maximum incentives for restraint globally, including the Mideast, through a variety of measures. including direct conversations. The variety of measures was understood to include trade and most favored nation agreement with the USSR,
Kissinger’s statement about quiet diplomacy in the Mideast was stressed several days earlier by State Department spokesman Robert Anderson. He said the U.S. is “looking to a period of quiet diplomacy to explore possibilities for the next steps toward peace in the Middle East.” Observers here believe that the State Department wants to maintain a low profile in the Mideast until Soviet Communist Party Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev concludes his round of talks with Arab leaders in Egypt. Syria and Iraq next month.
Meanwhile, reports from Israel indicate that Premier Yitzhak Rabin is speaking openly of a further Israeli withdrawal if Egypt is willing to cooperate towards a settlement even without pledging “non-belligerence.” Western diplomats here are not certain that his remarks mean Israel has made a turnabout. Rabin, in an interview last week in Haaretz, did not repeat Israel’s earlier demands for a formal declaration of “non-belligerence” by Egypt in return for a further disengagement pact, but stressed that Israel will not return to its pre-June 1967 borders in a talk to Tel Aviv high school students two days later.
CHANGE OF TACTICS, NOT POLICY
One diplomat remarked that perhaps Rabin has changed his tactics in not demanding non-belligerence. but believes that his basic policy is not changed, Non-belligerence need not be explicitly declared by Egypt but it could be accepted as implied if Egypt and Israel met on mutual ground, the diplomat noted. An agreement related to Israeli withdrawal would include the fact of non-belligerency even if it were not put that way, the diplomat amplified.
He forecast that the Sinai oil fields operated by Israel would not be included in any new Israeli withdrawal, although speculation exists that one purpose of Allon’s long sessions with Simon will be to arrange for financing of a steady U.S. supply of oil to Israel at economical prices to offset its loss of petroleum from the Sinai wells.
Some reports seen as inspired by top level State Department sources noted that Kissinger fears that unless the Israelis move back from Sinai to keep up the diplomatic momentum as a starter with Egypt at least, the fifth Arab-Israeli war would break out and another oil embargo would put America into a serious crisis with its European allies and Japan. Israel’s response to this, it is being said, is to ask for heavy U.S. arms shipment over the next three years to compensate for the loss in defensive territory. Kissinger reportedly wants more negotiations rather than, arms shipments.
Talk about a deeper Israeli withdrawal is seen here by some analysts as a bargaining device floated by the State Department Arabists to persuade the Israelis to compromise on the Rogers formula of insubstantial border changes. Some predict that the possibility of an open squabble between Washington and Jerusalem is in the offing and may burst into the open while Allon is here.
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.
