Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir warned tonight that Israel might have to “reassess its attitude” toward the peace process because of the failure of the West to appreciate Israel’s concessions for peace and because of the attitude of the Western countries toward the oil-producing states.
In a major address to a United Jewish Appeal Young Leadership mission here, Shamir declared that “Israel has done its duty and contributed more than its share toward a change for the better in the Middle East.”
He added: “We have reached, even passed, the limits of our concessions, both in the south,” a reference to the Sinai, “and in our proposal for full autonomy for the Arabs of Judaea and Samaria. The reaction of the West and its present attitude toward the oil-producing states may cause us to reassess our attitude. We cannot afford to take risks that are met only with demands for more risks.”
He asserted that the West had made “a major blunder in considering Saudi Arabia a main bulwark for strategic deployment in this region. The Saudi regime is a broken reed which cannot be relied on.”
He declared that the Saudis were now saying openly that the AWACS reconnaissance planes sold to them by the Reagan Administration were needed for “Arab and Moslem purposes.”
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.
