Premier Menachem Begin responded obliquely last night to reports that President Reagan has assured President Hafez Assad of Syria that the U.S. would insist that the return of the Golan Heights would be on the agenda of comprehensive peace negotiations based on United Nations Security Council Resolution 242.
The Golan Heights “came under Israeli law and administration a year-and-a-half ago and will continue to be so,” Begin told a Herut rally in Tel Aviv. “It will apply there forever,” he said. The Knesset vote to apply Israeli law to the Syrian territory in December, 1981, was widely viewed as de-facto annexation in Israel and abroad. But Reagan reportedly told Assad that Resolution 242 applies to the Golan Heights no less than to the West Bank and Gaza.
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