Premier Menachem Begin addressed a meeting of the Herut Central Committee here last night, a session devoted in large part to denunciations of President Anwar Sadat of Egypt for trying to dictate which Israeli leaders he will negotiate with. Begin himself responded angrily to personal criticism by Sadat, the most recent of which appeared in a Jerusalem Post interview yesterday, complaining that Begin was a bitter man of the old guard.
“I am no obstacle to peace though I may be an obstacle to capitulation,” Begin told the Herut constituents who are his main political base. He said he could not recall a case where the leader of one state so viciously attacked the head of another state, a reference to recent remarks by Sadat. Begin denied Sadat’s charge that he was interested only in signing a peace agreement, not what come afterwards.
“I do not regard on agreement as the ultimate goal but the beginning of a process that will be a real peaceful life for both nations in the region,” he said, drawing a standing ovation.
Begin was also applauded when he took Shimon Peres, leader of the opposition Labor Alignment, to task for his meeting with Sadat in Vienna last week. Peres was the target of other speakers, as was, by implication, Defense Minister Ezer Weizman, nominally No. 2 man in Herut, who was conspicuously absent from the meeting. Weizman excused himself because he was scheduled to address a gathering of officers marking the 30th anniversary of Israel’s Air Force which he once commanded.
Weizman has had open differences with Begin on negotiating tactics and Sadat’s publicly expressed preference for dealing with Weizman rather than the premier has aroused the Ire of Weizman’s Herut colleagues. Last night, Agriculture Minister Ariel Sharon, one of the leading Herut hawks, assailed “people and political leaders among us who think they can be built up by being the choice of an Arab leader.”
The barb was aimed at Weizman, though Sharon did not mention him by name. He observed, sarcastically, that “once it was clear that the Prime Minister was chosen by the Knesset. Then it seemed we needed the blessings of the White House. Now there are those who get their matriculation from Arab leaders.”
Shmuel Katz, another Herut hardliner who served briefly as Begin’s information advisor, was more specific. “Sadat says he cannot talk with Begin as he has no common language with him, but he has one with Peres and Weizman,” Katz said. Katz, and another Herut die-hard, MK Geula Cohen, urged that Begin withdraw his peace plan and revert to what they called negotiations without any pre-conditions.
They also demanded that Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan’s meeting with Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohammed Kaamel and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance beginning in Britain tomorrow be cancelled. They claimed the talks would be a farce and would dishonor the State.
DAYAN’S HOPE FOR TALKS
Dayan, nevertheless, left for England today for the talks that will be held at Leeds Castle, 35 miles southeast of London. He told reporters that he expected his meeting with Kaamel to result in a decision to continue Israeli-Egyptian negotiations and agreement on the time, place and agenda of future meetings.
Dayan said he was taking Israel’s peace plan with him in the hope of finding some points of agreement between it and Egypt’s proposals. He said if such points could be found, he would regard his mission as a success. He said the proposals Weizman brought back from his meeting with Sadat in Salzburg last week were not relevant to his talks with Kaamel and therefore the Cabinet was justified in postponing discussion of them until its next meeting on Sunday.
WEIZMAN MUM ABOUT SADAT MEETING
Weizman was reportedly angered by the postponement. Yesterday, he stormed out of a meeting with the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Security Committee after refusing to discuss his latest meeting with Sadat. When committee members pressed him for details of Sadat’s proposals, Weizman told them to ask Begin and abruptly left the room. Begin was equally reticent when he met with reporters after the Cabinet session that lasted five hours. “We could not reach a decision on the (Sadat) proposals today due to lack of time,” he said.
Labor Alignment MKs reacted angrily to Weizman’s walkout. They said it was the first time a minister refused to brief a Knesset committee on major developments. The Labor Party was also incensed by yesterday’s Cabinet resolution forbidding unauthorized persons to negotiate with the leaders of states that are officially at war with Israel. This was taken as a ban against future meetings with Arab leaders by Peres or other opposition figures. The Laborites called it “an hysterical reaction.”
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.
