Gov. Michael Dukakis said Tuesday night that progress toward peace in the Middle East does not depend on who wins the Israeli elections next week, but on Arab leaders being willing to negotiate with Israel.
The Democratic presidential candidate, appearing on ABC-TV’s “Nightline” program, rejected an assertion by King Hussein of Jordan on that program last week that if Premier Yitzhak Shamir’s Likud bloc defeats Foreign Minister Shimon Peres’ Labor Party, it will be an “absolute disaster” for the peace process.
Dukakis stressed that he did not want to express an opinion on the Israeli elections. But, he added, “Shamir, himself, has said that everything is on the table, and if Arab leaders will stand up and do what Sadat did, then he is prepared to sit down and negotiate.”
The governor was referring to late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s historic visit to Jerusalem in November 1977.
Dukakis noted that it was former Israeli Premier Menachem Begin, “who was supposed to be a hard-liner, who participated in the Camp David process, the Camp David accords.”
But “what is essential” for Arab leaders to recognize, he said, is Israel’s right to exist within secure borders, as specified in U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.
When Ted Koppel, the interviewer for the 90-minute program, suggested that the Palestine Liberation Organization is prepared to accept the two U.N. resolutions and “in effect, Israel’s right to exist,” Dukakis said, “That is going to take some proving and some demonstration.”
He pointed out that the PLO has not renounced terrorism or eliminated references to the destruction of Israel.
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