Foreign Minister Abba Eban said today that the Israeli Government would readily agree to meet with Tunisia’s President Habib Bourguiba for talks on the Middle East conflict. Israel would like to hear from Bourguiba his ideas on where and when such a meeting could take place, Eban said.
Summing up a foreign policy debate in the Knesset, Eban said that when first reports of Bourguiba’s newspaper, interview in Italy came through last week he had doubted if the Tunisian leader was seriously suggesting himself as mediator, since he was identified with the Arab cause and was not neutral. It appeared from the interview in the Milan newspaper, Corriere Della Sera, that he did not suggest mediation, merely that he wanted to meet with authorized Israeli spokesmen. Israel has always been ready to meet Arab leaders and is still ready, Eban said. The fact that many opportunities for meetings in the past were missed was not Israel’s fault, he added.
Eban said that the resolution on the Mideast adopted by the Organization for African Unity (OAU) in Addis Abbaba caused Israel deep displeasure. The Egyptian case was fully stated to the delegates but Israel had no chance to be heard. On the other hand, Eban pointed out that many African states had refused to be dictated to by the Arabs. This was a reference to the Arab failure to win a resolution urging OAU members to break diplomatic ties with Israel and to Libya’s efforts to move OAU headquarters to Cairo.
Direct negotiation was a traditional African way of solving disputes, Eban said, but the OAU apparently felt this did not apply to the Israel Arab dispute. The OAU also forgot the recommendation of the four African presidents in 1971 for direct negotiations which Israel had accepted and Egypt rejected, Eban pointed out.
On Soviet Jewry, Eban said Israel was relying on U.S. Jewish leaders to make their point clear to Soviet Communist Party Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev–and at the same time to act with wisdom and not rashly. “We don’t want action against anyone. We want action for Russian Jewry,” he said.
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