Foreign Ministry Asserts Its Information is Accurate; Israel Anxious to Move on to Talks

The Foreign Ministry, reacting to the United States State Department’s downplaying today of Israeli charges of Egyptian standstill violations said tonight that “We are certain of the accuracy and seriousness of our information.” The Ministry spokesman continued: “We consider it our duty to add that we are continuing to explain to the public the data and the information in our possession on which we based our complaints to international bodies.” It was also announced that Foreign Minister Abba Eban had met Monday and yesterday on the matter with U.S. Ambassador Walworth Barbour. Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin, returning to Tel Aviv from Washington last night after reportedly being briefed on the State Department announcement by Assistant Secretary of State Joseph J. Sisco, said the U.S. response was “incomplete” and that the U.S. was still studying the Israeli evidence. Ambassador Rabin, here on home leave, insisted there was no “credibility crisis” between the two countries, which he observed were still engaged in dialogue on several questions. “There are discussions, sometimes even differences of attitude or even opposite approaches to certain problems,” he said, adding: “We must not forget that the U.S. is Israel’s only friend in the world today.”

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned from well-informed sources today that the Israeli government will not make a crisis out of the missile controversy with the U.S. because it wants to move on to the next phase of the American peace initiative, which is the negotiating process. The high-level consensus here is that the U.S. clearly is unable to reverse the situation in the canal zone but that American “compensatory” action to strengthen Israel’s position along the Suez Canal can be expected as a result of Israel’s complaints. Israel is convinced the U.S. knows the violation charges are true but that it does not want to acknowledge the fact for rear of torpedoing Secretary of State William P. Rogers’ entire peace plan, sources told the JTA. Israel will react, but the degree of vehemence will depend to some extent on American reassurances in other fields, they said. Gen. Rabin said last night that be had pointed out to the Americans that the situation on the Suez Canal would be far more serious than before if hostilities were to resume because of the Egyptian violations. He declined to comment on arms supplies from the U.S. or to say where the Americans were conducting truce surveillance flights. According to Gen. Rabin, the American peace initiative had its genesis in the worsening situation on the Suez Canal front, which convinced the U.S. that Israel could not hold its defense line long in face of increased Soviet intervention.