Premier Menachem Begin’s office confirmed today that Begin has invited Crown Prince Fahd of Saudi Arabia to visit Israel and address the Knesset on the Saudi’s proposals for peace.
Begin made the offer during a wide-ranging interview in Jerusalem yesterday with Katherine Graham, publisher of The Washington Past, and a group of the newspaper’s editors currently touring the Middle East. The Post reported today that Begin invited Fahd “to address the Parliament about his willingness, under certain conditions, to bring the Palestinians and other Arabs into a peace agreement with Israel.”
On Sunday, The Post published an interview between Ms., Graham and Fahd in which the Saudi leader said that his government would seek to bring the Arab states and the Palestinians into an overall peace settlement with Israel if Israel gave its undertaking to withdraw from all Arab territories it occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem.
Post correspondent William Claiborne, reporting from Jerusalem, quoted Begin as saying in response, “I have to say that his (Fahd’s) demands, under any condition, are rejected and are totally unacceptable. But he’s invited. Perhaps he will convince me. Perhaps I will convince him.”
The Moroccan News Agency, meanwhile, reported today that it was told by Fahd in an interview that The Washington Post had misinterpreted his remarks as meaning that Saudi Arabia would make any unilateral move toward Israel. According to that report, Fahd said Saudi Arabia “cannot take any initiative, welcome any idea or accept and decision or negotiate with any party, either directly or indirectly, except in the framework of Arab consensus.” Fahd’s remarks to Graham had implied just the opposite — that the Saudis would attempt to create an Arab consensus to negotiate with Israel.
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