Eban: Gulf War Proves Arab-israeli Dispute Not Main Source of Tension

Former Foreign Minister Abbo-Ebon said here that the Iraqi-Iranian war proves that the Arab-Israeli dispute is a “neighborhood quarrel” and “not the main source of tension and instability in the Middle East.”

Ebon, who appeared of the opening session of “Dialogue 80,” a community forum founded and moderated by Rabbi William Berkowitz of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, said that both Democratic and Republican foreign policy experts agreed with that assessment.

He disclosed that at meetings he had with National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Richard Allen, foreign affairs advisor to Republican Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan, all agreed that the war in the Persian Gulf proves there has been “too much preoccupation with the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

He said the lesson the war holds for Israel “is not to be weak. Israel must develop its treaty with Egypt, rehabilitate its relations with public opinion in the West and see to it that it doesn’t fall into a position of military interiority.”

‘PSYCHOLOGICAL LINK’ FOR PARIS BOMBING

Ebon, a Labor Party member of the Knesset, held that the recent upsurge of neo-Nazism in Europe which culminated with the bombing of a Paris synagogue on Oct. 3, had a “psychological link” with greater French and worldwide legitimization of the Palestine Liberation Organization and general acceptance of violence and terrorism.

“If the French government gives such support to the PLO, allows it to have an office, sponsors resolutions in its favor, stresses its place in the negotiations — isn’t on atmosphere created in which an organization dedicated to violence outside France creates an epidemic inside France ?” Ebon asked .