Israel reaffirmed today its readiness “for a reconvening of the Geneva conference at any time with the participants of the original conference of December 1973” and said that she is willing to compromise for peace in the Mideast.
Addressing the Security Council, which held its second meeting this afternoon on Egypt’s request to discuss Secretary General Kurt Waldheim’s recent Mideast tour and the progress toward reconvening the Geneva Peace Conference Israeli Ambassador Chaim Herzog told the Council: “We are prepared to negotiate (with the Arabs) today, tomorrow. We are prepared for compromise. We are prepared to go to Geneva to a reconvening of the peace conference with the original participants. We see the main problem to be a clear definition of the nature of peace. We are not prepared to negotiate with those who call for our destruction because we have no intention of committing national suicide.”
Referring to recent remarks by President Carter and Soviet Communist Party Secretary Leonid Brezhnev on the need for negotiations between the parties in the Mideast, the Israeli envoy said: “The fact that the joint co-chairman of the (Geneva) Conference (the U.S. and the Soviet Union) recognize the centrality of the principle of negotiation between the parties is of the greatest significance.” Herzog said that Israel “welcomes” Brezhnev’s Mideast statement, noting that Israel takes cognizance of the Soviet leader’s statement that “the conference in Geneva, of course, is not an end in itself. Fruitful and just results of its work are the main thing.”
Herzog said, however, that “this welcome Soviet move towards the principle of free negotiations between the parties would appear to be somewhat irreconcilable with the preconditions for the final document on peace which the Soviet statement sets out in advance of such negotiations. In particular on issues which divide the parties and which are vital to Israel’s security such as borders or the establishment of a further State in addition to Jordan on our Eastern border.”
ANSWERS MEGUID’S CHARGES
Responding to the attack against Israel by Egyptian Ambassador Esmat Abdel Meguid, who charged last Friday at the opening of the Council debate that Israel is mistreating the Arab population in the occupied territories, Herzog said disturbances in the West Bank “invariably coincide exactly with the opening of any Security Council meeting. An analysis of all the Security Council meetings over the past years will reveal the facts that events in the West Bank are not unrelated to the convening of Security Council meetings.”
On the Egyptian charge that Israel violates the human rights of the Arab population Herzog said that the recent demonstrations in Egypt over food prices and the “brutal repression of hungry workers in Egypt” do not give Meguid “any standing” to talk about human rights. He said that it is time for the UN to turn its attention to the problem of human rights in the Arab world.
On the issue of Arab refugees, Herzog said: “that a major exchange of population in the Mideast has occurred” with the absorption of more than 800,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries in Israel. While the Arab-Jewish refugees were cared for by the Jewish people, the Arab states,Herzog charged, kept their refugees in subhuman conditions “as political pawns”.
Sources here told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the Arabs are interested in passing a strong anti-Israel resolution in the Council. But the sources added, with the up-coming visit of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to Washington the Arabs might compromise in order not to appear to be in conflict with the United States.
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.
