Rabin Suggests Carter’s Mideast Statements May Have Cost Labor Votes

Premier Yitzhak Rabin urged the Carter Administration last night not to take any position on the specific elements of an overall or limited agreement in the Middle East lest it prevent an accord between the parties themselves. Addressing the closing session of the Conference on the Role of the Media in Political Conflict here, Rabin claimed that certain remarks by President Carter on the Mideast two weeks before the Israeli elections aroused confusion among the voters and decreased support for the Labor Alignment.

Rabin said many of Carter’s recent remarks dismayed him because they aroused false hopes among the Arabs. “I cannot say the new American Administration, at least in certain utterances, has kept the same approach that we experienced in the past,” Rabin said. He added, “I hope I’m wrong.”