Prime Minister Levi Eshkol said here this weekend that, as a result of negotiations with the United States for American supply of arms to Israel, “we shall not emerge empty-handed.”
He made that statement in reply to a question at a luncheon at the Tel Aviv Press Club, where he was asked whether the United States has made any attempts to impose Washington’s views upon Israel in regard to the Arab efforts to divert the Jordan River headwaters, Israel’s atomic reactor at Dimona, or arms supplies being sent to the Arab states.
Affirming that some arms concessions are expected from the United States, he added: “There are no strings attached.” He declared that W. Averell Harriman, President Johnson’s special envoy, who was here last month, had made no demands and had brought no pressures upon Israel. Nor are demands or pressures, he said, expected from Phillips Talbot, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, who will visit Israel shortly. Mr. Talbot, it was asserted, will be in Israel only 24 hours, and may not even meet with the Premier.
The meeting with the press here was Mr. Eshkol’s first since his recent week’s visit to London, where he conferred with all the top leaders of the British Government. “Israel has reached a stage where, in its talks with world leaders,” he said, “they recognize the fact that Israel must be adequately supplied, in order that she should form a deterrent fact.”
His visit to Britain, he said, was “satisfactory.” It was the British, he reported, and not he who had raised the Jordan River diversion question, and they had some “advice” to offer to Israel on the issue. It had been reported earlier that Britain advised Israel not to take any action against the Arab water diversion plans, but to leave the issue to the United Nations.
As to Israeli relations with the Soviet Union, he stated that, in view of the preoccupation of the Big Powers with the Vietnam situation, there is little chance now for a rapprochement between Israel and the USSR. In regard to peace talks with the Arabs, he reiterated Israel’s long-standing offer to meet directly with the Arabs for peace talks, when the latter agreed to do so.
Rumors that he was contemplating another trip abroad soon were dissipated by Mr. Eshkol. He said that, though such a trip had been considered, he would not go abroad before the general elections scheduled to be held in Israel next November.
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