Israel has “totally rejected” this week’s Mideast statement by the nine European Economic Community (EEC) foreign ministers. A letter sent today by Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan to his European colleagues, which Dayan read out from the Knesset podium, termed the EEC statement “injurious to the entire process of negotiations.” The EEC ministers, in their statement, criticized “certain positions and actions” of the Israeli government as detrimental to the peace process and specifically criticized Israeli settlements in the administered areas as illegal.
Dayan’s reply, which was handed to the EEC ambassadors at the Foreign Ministry this morning, said “The position taken by the EEC can only discourage the negotiations between the parties on all the various issues involved in autonomy and the future of Judaea, Samaria and the Gaza district. It had been sour expectation that the EEC would give its full support to the historic achievement of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty… I can only ask you to weigh most carefully the grave responsibility and consequences of attempts to prejudice and dictate from without the course of negotiations, strengthening the forces committed to their failure, “Dayan’s letter said.
He claimed that “The Israeli settlements are in our opinion strictly in accord with international law and we know of no rule of law which could feasibly ban Jews from living in Judaea, Samaria and Gaza. Not a single Arab has been displaced by these settlements. On the contrary, the establishment of the Jewish settlements in these areas has brought with it economic development and additional sources of employment to the Arab inhabitants of these areas.”
Officials here said they are especially upset and disturbed by the West German role in the evolution of the EEC statement. From a position of supporting the Camp David accords and the ensuing peace treaty, Germany has steadily veered towards aligning itself behind French opposition to the U.S. orchestrated Israel-Egypt peace process. Immediately after the issuance of the EEC statement, West Germany’s Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher left for a visit to Libya.
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