Allon Sees Prospects for Interim Negotiations with Egypt

Foreign Minister Yigal Allon said here tonight that interim talks with Egypt were “objectively possible” and there was no room, therefore, for “complete pessimism which declares that such negotiations are utterly impossible in the near future.” Premier Yitzhak Rabin, however, has been heard privately to speak less optimistically of the prospect of interim talks with Egypt.

Allon conceded, in a lecture at Tel Aviv University, that there was “room for serious concern” that the gap between Israeli and Egyptian demands might prove unbridgeable. But he pointed out that the gap was no less deep and wide when the disengagement negotiations began–” and never- theless a road to compromise was found.”

An interim accord with Egypt must involve Egyptian concessions “greater than those which Egypt granted in the disengagement agreement,” Allon said. The concommittant Israeli withdrawal would have to be “considerably less extensive” than that which Israel was ready to make in exchange for real peace–in order to induce Egypt to progress further towards real peace, Allon said “The overall principle is clear: the depth of the Israeli withdrawal must be directly proportional to the scope and significance of the Egyptian commitments, including the time period for which the agreement is to be effective.” Allon would not specify topographical scenarios.

FAVORS WEST BANK HOME RULE

Referring to the West Bank, the Foreign Minister spoke of his long-held views that the local populace should be encouraged to develop a “kind of home rule” in those areas which Israel ultimately intended to relinquish. He urged that a start be made “in the near future” on “the first steps of such a civilian government or at least the examination of the possibility of a start in the fields of agriculture, education, and others.”

He suggested that when the Palestine Liberation Organization has been “reduced to its proper size and impotence,” important elements on the West Bank would hopefully “wish to take their fate into their own hands.” Jordan itself had, after the Rabat summit, carefully retained a “latent option” over the West Bank, which might be called into play in the distant future, Allon said.

But in the more immediate short range, Allon called for negotiations with Jordan “in the framework of an interim settlement” on “normalizing relations” along the long border from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea, and north of the West Bank along the border at Belt Shean. He suggested possible Jordanian use of an Israeli Mediterranean seaport, joint cooperation of the development of Eilat and Aqaba, and coordination in development of the mineral-rich Dead Sea region.

PROBLEMS FACING ISRAEL’S FOREIGN POLICY

Allon listed the “peak” which Arab oil bargaining power has reached, the “nadir” of the industrialized West, and consistent Soviet encouragement of Arab extremists, as the basic problems facing Israeli foreign policy. On the positive side of the scales was the fact that a strong and stable Israel was in American and Western interests, and the fact that Israel enjoyed sympathy in Western public opinion.

Israel’s basic aim, he said, remained attainment of full contractual peace. Since the Arabs are unready for this, the prime practical aim is to prevent war, or, if that is impossible, to postpone its outbreak in the hope that it could eventually be avoided. If that too proves impossible then the aim is to limit the war to one front or “to prevent the multiple front from becoming a simultaneous one.”

This analysis was similar to that outlined by Premier Yitzhak Rabin in his Haaretz interview Dec. 3 in which he indicated a greater flexibility than heretofore in Israel’s position on a second stage agreement with Egypt and in which he dropped Israel’s earlier demands for a formal declaration of non-belligerency by Egypt in return for a further disengagement pact. Rabin was subsequently criticized for being overly frank.