Israel’s former Defense Minister Moshe Dayan electrified a crowd of nearly 20,000 who gathered at Earl’s Court amphitheater yesterday in a powerful demonstration of solidarity with Israel. The rally, the largest of its kind ever held in Britain, was preceded by a parade of Jewish and Zionist youth groups from Albert Hall in West London where Dayan had released a flock of pigeons as a symbol of Israel’s quest for peace.
The audience cheered and stamped when the former defense chief declared, “We shall go in establishing ourselves in Jerusalem. Hebron. Shiloh and on the River Jordan. We shall not betray the vision of Herzl, Weizmann and Ben Gurion by helping to establish a Palestinian state or an Arab kingdom in part of Jerusalem. Nor will Arafat and the PLO be allowed to come back and destroy Israel from within.”
Dayan told the assemblage that their display of solidarity was gratifying. But, he added, “You are here not in solidarity with Israel but in solidarity with yourselves as members of the Jewish people and their 2,000 years-old prayers for the return to Israel and the creation of their own Jewish State.” He said that above all, Jewish solidarity meant settling in Israel, learning the Hebrew language and serving in Israel’s armed forces.
CRITICAL OF RABIN GOVERNMENT
Dayan was more circumspect in his remarks at a press conference here Friday. He said that Israel should maintain a low profile on the West Bank, denounced the Gush Emunim squatters and acknowledged that he disagreed on almost everything with the leaders of Israel’s government. He suggested that Israel keep its troops out of the Arab population centers such as Nablus and not intrude on West Bank Arabs.
Dayan supported Jewish settlements in the occupied territories but only in areas authorized by the government. He urged the Israeli government to be more assertive against militant. illegal settlement movements like the Gush.
According to Dayan, the recent disturbances on the West Bank did not herald the start of an ###uprising. He reiterated his view that there is no room for a Palestine state and that the future of the West Bank must be settled in negotiations between Israel and Jordan. He dismissed PLO chieftain Yassir Arafat who, he said, did not speak for the people of the West Bank.Replying to questions about his own political views. Dayan said he was not in agreement with Yitzhak Rabin as Premier. Yehoshua Rabinowitz as Finance Minister or Yigal Allon as Foreign Minister. He did not mention Defense Minister Shimon Peres, a leader of Dayan’s own Rafi wing of the Labor Party. Dayan charged that the Rabin government had made a mistake in agreeing to the second disengagement accord with Egypt last September without gaining an explicit Egyptian commitment to end the state of war. But he said he was cautiously hopeful that Egypt and Jordan would not become embroiled in war with Israel in the near future. He thought both of those countries preferred to deal with Israel in the political arena.
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.
