Defense Minister Moshe Dayan told an American Zionist audience here yesterday that the establishment of new Israeli settlements in strategic areas of the occupied Arab territories was more important than declarations of annexation which he considered unwise at the present time.
Gen. Dayan spoke at the closing session of the 60th annual convention of Mizrachi Organization of America, the religious Zionist organization. “Deeds are more important than resolutions,” he declared. As long as the Arabs refuse to make peace, Israel must prepare its security boundaries by “creating the facts of settlements in the occupied territories,” Gen. Dayan said.
He said that Israel must also create conditions of co-existence with the Arabs in those territories, not as an occupying power but rather as two free nations living with each other.
Replying to questions, the Defense Minister said that the reactivation of the Arab Eastern Command and the increased threat it posed made new demands on Israeli manpower and materiel. But he cautioned the Arabs that any aggression on their part “carries the seeds of an Israeli victory.” Here Gen, Dayan paraphrased Napoleon adding that “every aggressive Arab leader carries another Israeli victory in his knapsack.” Asked about the Soviet role in Arab armed forces, Gen. Dayan said Russians did not pilot Arab planes in the recent attacks by Egyptian and Syrian aircraft, “but they were standing not far away and were directing.” He said that Russians were seeking to increase their political influence in the Middle East and possibly establish bases there. Meanwhile, they are tightening “the strings of dependency which bind the Arab states” to Moscow.
The Mizrachi convention resolved to encourage American immigration to Israel and to see to it that Jerusalem is never divided again. The convention also welcomed in principle President Richard M. Nixon’s efforts to bring peace to the Middle East. But one of the speakers. Interior Minister Moshe Shapiro, stressed that Israel would hold to its present boundaries as long as the Arabs refused peace negotiations.
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