Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan will be leaving for the United States in a few days carrying a Cabinet-approved Israeli peace plan drafted by a team of high-ranking officials under the guidance of Premier Menachem Begin, Defense Minister Ezer Weizman and Dayan himself. The plan, the substantial contents of which have been kept secret, will not be accompanied by maps. Only its first clause has been disclosed. This affirms that the state of war between Israel and Egypt has ended.
The Cabinet, which yesterday approved the peace plan, also approved the “rules” that will serve as a guideline in Dayan’s talks with Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and other American officials in what will be the beginning of a round of talks between Vance and Middle East foreign ministers. The only other hint of what the peace plan contains was in the disclosure that Dayan will carry an accompanying letter to Vance containing in Begin’s worlds, “the rules according to which Israel would determine the boundaries.”
The peace plan is the first that Israel has prepared in writing and is expected to be conveyed by Vance to the Arab foreign ministers with whom he will meet later this month. Vance is believed to have asked the Arab governments for similar peace plan drafts to serve as the basis for negotiations. So far, none of the Arab governments is known to have prepared such a plan. Dayan is expected to have a certain degree of flexibility in conducting his talks in the U.S. He will be out of the country for a month during which time Begin will replace him.
Meanwhile, there was no confirmation that Israel’s peace plan would include a proposal that Arabs on the West Bank would be given a good deal of local autonomy and self-government in order to develop a leadership which would be independent of the Palestine Liberation Organization while Israel would continue to maintain strategic military installations to assure security. Neither was there any confirmation of speculation that Dayan may meet with one of the Arab foreign ministers while the envoys are in New York during the United Nations General Assembly session.
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