Former Defense Minister Moshe Dayan who shook Israel last week with his assertion that the United States forced it to resupply the encircled Egyptian Third Army right after the first Yom Kippur War cease-fire, Jolted the nation again last night by declaring that as long as Israel remained on the Golan Heights, the “sword of war” would hang forever over its head.
His remark, on a television interview, implied a belief that if Israel wants peace it must return the Golan Heights to Syria. In a statement of clarification today to the newspaper Yediot Achronot, Dayan said he was not proposing that Israel leave the Golan Heights but simply wanted to stress that the Golan was the key to war or peace.
His statement to the newspaper said that since government leaders were saying that Israel must do everything to avoid war, they must realize that the decision they faced was whether to insist on remaining on the Golan, which Syria will never accept, or to relinquish the Heights if Israel’s overriding aim is to avoid war at all costs. Some observers suggested that Dayan’s meaning was that war cannot be avoided.
WEST BANK NOT A BASIS FOR WAR
On the TV interview, he said: “As long as we remain on the Golan, the sword of war dangles over our heads. I do not know in what month or in what year the war will break out, but our occupation of the Golan is not only an open wound that does not heal, it is the key to war.”
Dayan also stated: “If Egypt is not prepared for a separate settlement without Syria, even our most tempting proposals (to Egypt) will not make any difference unless we propose a settlement with Syria too. And a settlement with Syria means relinquishing the Golan Heights… I don’t see any 2-3 kilometer pullback from this or that hill solving the problem as far as Syria is concerned….They just do not want us to be there, though I am not referring to demilitarization or other security arrangements to which they might possibly agree.”
Dayan expressed the view that neither Syria nor Egypt would go to war with Israel over the West Bank. “I don’t see the PLO, the Jordan government, the Palestinians or any Arab state going to war over Judaea and Samaria,” he said.
DIFFERENCE ON ALLEGED U.S. THREAT
Dayan’s remarks about the Egyptian Third Army, a bombshell that had reverberations in Washington, were made in the course of a lecture series at Bar llan University in Tel Aviv on the subject of big power involvement in the Middle East. He claimed that the U.S. obtained Israel’s consent to open a supply corridor to the encircled Egyptian force by threatening to airlift supplies itself to the Egyptians. Israel did agree to the supply corridor, but according to official sources here at the time, only because the U.S. had warned that the Soviet Union would intervene.
Asked to comment on Dayan’s allegations, State Department spokesman Paul Hare said in Washing ton Friday that it would not be “useful” to discuss the matter. “I don’t think it would be useful to rehash the events of that very tense period and deal with parts of them out of context,” Hare said
Maj. Gen. Haim Herzog, Israel’s leading military commentator and former chief of intelligence said, in Tel Aviv Friday that he had no knowledge of such an American threat. “I understand (Secretary of State Henry A.) Kissinger said, ‘If you don’t do it there will be nothing to stop the Russians from taking supplies through,” Herzog said.
Dayan said he would continue his lectures at Bar Ilan despite last Thursday’s incident when the lecture hall was besieged by grieving parents who accused the former Defense Minister of responsibility for the deaths of their sons in the Yom Kippur War.
Premier Yitzhak Rabin said here that he is ready to meet with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat “any time and any place” in a face-to-face discussion for the purpose of peace talks between the two countries. Addressing the Commercial and Industrial Club here Friday, Rabin declared: “We will sit down together in the presence of others when you (Sadat) determine the meeting and dialogue, which will be peace between Israel and Egypt.”
The Premier made his remarks following a television interview broadcast on American ABC-TV Thursday night in which Sadat said that the United States and the Soviet Union might jointly guarantee both Israeli and Egyptian frontiers. Stressing that the next three months was “a very crucial time” to maintain the “momentum of the whole process of peace” started by implementation of the troop separation agreements in the Sinai and on the Golan Heights, Sadat said his acceptance of the UN Security Council Resolution 242 “means that I accept Israel as a fact.”
The one-hour interview with Howard K. Smith and Peter Jennings was taken from six interviews held in Egypt between September and December, according to the American Broadcasting Co. network, which noted some of Sadat’s comments might have been outdated by events since the interviews were made. Sadat insisted that neither he nor Hafez Assad of Syria were preparing for a new war against Israel. He added he had “already said” that he was “ready for a peace agreement with Israel and this is valid up to this moment.”
But, he said, for peace to be achieved, “Israel must move on all the fronts–the Egyptian front, the Syrian front, the Jordanian front, the Palestinian front, now.” He said such movement by Israel would mean Israel was “ready to continue the process of peace.” Sadat said also that the United States could have the “main role in keeping the momentum” because “frankly speaking,” all the cards are in the hands of the United States.” He said he could understand the Palestine Liberation Organization point of view and he urged the Western nations to give the PLO “time.”
Rabin told the businessmen, in response to Sadat, “If you really want peace, why do you just say so for propaganda purposes on American television?” The Premier then added that he would be willing to meet with Sadat to discuss peace in a concrete manner.
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