Foreign Minister Abba Eban will make a major foreign policy statement in the Knesset tomorrow emphasizing Israel’s “unceasing efforts” to arrange contacts and negotiations with the Arabs. The speech was scheduled as concern mounted over the possible propaganda effects of a plan disclosed yesterday for Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Jewish Congress, to meet with President Gamal Abdel Nasser in Cairo. The idea was rejected by the Israeli Cabinet. Dr. Goldmann said today that he was sorry the Cabinet vetoed the plan. He said he normally favored every form of communication but bowed to the Government’s decision and would not do anything further on the matter. The Cabinet’ stated emphatically that Israel reserved the right to name its own delegates to any talks with the Arabs and Mr. Eban is expected to emphasize that point in his address.
Two opposition factions, Haolam Hazeh and the New Communists, have introduced motions of no confidence in the Government. The Agudat Israel has introduced an agenda motion on the same issue and the Independent Liberal Party has asked for further clarification because its Cabinet Minister, Moshe Kol, is abroad. Dr. Goldmann has been invited to participate in a session of the Independent Liberal Party executive. He has agreed to participate tomorrow night in a session of the Labor Party’s Knesset faction. Reports that a Goldmann-Nasser meeting was considered first appeared in Paris yesterday and were confirmed when the Israel Cabinet published an announcement stating that it had rejected the idea. The decision was reportedly taken a week ago and made public only after French newsmen got hold of the story. Dr. Goldmann’s remarks were made in an interview with Eric Rouleau, Middle East editor of the Paris dally, Le Monde.
Dr. Goldmann said he had not been invited to Cairo but had received only a “suggestion” that he go there. He would not say who originally made the suggestion but disclosed that it was repeated to him by an Egyptian official in Paris who laid down President Nasser’s conditions for such a meeting. The conditions were that it would have to be with the knowledge of the Israeli Cabinet and that all public announcements of a meeting were to be left to the Egyptians. Dr. Goldmann, 79, served for many years as president of the World Zionist Organization. He has no official position in Israel. He stressed that he would have gone to Cairo as a private citizen holding an Israeli passport.
CABINET REJECTS PROPOSED MEETING: FAVORS ONE WHERE EACH SIDE CAN CHOOSE REPRESENTATIVE
Last night’s Cabinet announcement stated: “The Government decided that it would respond favorable to any manifestation of willingness on the part of the President of Egypt for a meeting to investigate problems crucial to Israel and Egypt where each side were free to appoint its own representative. Therefore, to Dr. Goldmann’s request that the Government should approve his meeting with the President of Egypt, the Government has decided to reply in the negative.” The Cabinet announcement said that only one minister had reservations about that decision. It said that minister was not Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan who was, reportedly, the first Israeli Government official approached by Dr. Goldmann. Reports published abroad said Gen. Dayan had favored the idea. But the Cabinet stressed that both he and Foreign Minister Abba Eban supported the Government’s decision and that Gen. Dayan in fact had a part in formulating it. Informed sources here believe the dissenting minister was Victor Shemtov of the Mapam faction.
Dr. Goldmann told the Le Monde editor that he thought the suggestion had been serious. “I don’t believe Nasser would have just looked at my eyes,” he said. He said no Russian mediation was involved but when asked if the Yugoslav Ambassador in Cairo had been a middleman, he replied, “no comment.” Dr. Goldmann has had many meetings with Communist leaders since the Communist countries broke off diplomatic relations with Israel during the June, 1967 Arab-Israeli war. They include Anatoly F. Dobrynin, Soviet Ambassador to the United States and Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia. Observers here said the Egyptian Government apparently wanted to talk but to avoid the description of such talks as direct. They would have been direct if a Government representative had been chosen for the task by Israel.
Sources here said that Dr. Goldmann was the least likely person to be chosen for contacts with the Arabs because his views on a solution of the Arab-Israeli conflict differ decisively from the official Israeli stand. Those views, advocating the “neutralization” of Israel in international affairs, unilateral concessions by Israel and a settlement without a formal peace treaty or recognized frontiers, have been propounded by Dr. Goldmann recently in an article in Foreign Affairs Quarterly and in a series of articles currently appearing in the Israeli daily Haaretz. Dr. Goldmann reportedly authorized publication of the Haaretz articles after learning of the Cabinet’s decision not to let him go to Cairo.
Some sources here claimed that Egypt had no intention whatever to really seek a settlement and the meeting with Dr. Goldmann was chosen as a propaganda instrument, Cairo radio meanwhile denied that there were any proposals for a Nasser-Goldmann meeting. The denial, on its foreign language broadcast monitored here today, was made by Dr. Meguid, the official Egyptian Government spokesman. It was not carried on the Egyptian home radio broadcast.
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