Premier Menachem Begin pledged last night that Israel will continue to negotiate for a peace treaty with Egypt but insisted that his country was not seeking a separate agreement and hoped to sign treaties with all of its Arab neighbors.
Addressing 350 leaders from American and Canadian Jewish communities at the farewell dinner of the 1979 Prime Minister’s Israel Bond Conference at the Knesset, Begin said Israel never considered the idea of a separate agreement and always aspired to widen the circle of Arab countries with which it would sign treaties. But, he asked, “Can anyone force Syria to come to the table, can we or Egypt or even the U.S.? We must be sure that this peace treaty does not depend on the whim of hostile forces.”
Begin rejected the argument that a peace treaty was only a scrap of paper. “The will behind the paper is what is important and that is why we must make sure that the agreement will Egypt should not be conditional…..We will not sign a non-peace agreement. We will only sign a genuine peace agreement,” he said.
Begin repeatedly blamed Egypt for the failure to reach agreement so far. He claimed that “If it hadn’t been for the new Egyptian proposals, we could have signed the peace treaty even before December 17,” the deadline proposed at Camp David. However, he pledged, “there will be ups and downs but we will continue to negotiate. We are prepared to negotiate the outstanding issues.”
Referring to events in Iran, Begin contended that the free world was in danger and described Israel as one of the few remaining democratic bastions that was prepared to fight for liberty.
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