Mrs. Golda Meir, Israel’s Foreign Minister, was reported to have taken issue today with some views of the U.S. Department of State on Israel-Arab differences contained in a letter by Assistant Secretary of State James F. Grant.
The State Department official had sent the letter to Louis Segal, general secretary of the Farband-Labor Zionist Order, in reply to communications sent by Mr. Segal to President Kennedy and Secretary of State Dean Rusk, in which the Farband leader raised a number of issues of U.S. policy in the Middle East. Mr. Grant’s letter was released July 11.
Mrs. Meir met today with J.C. Bernes, the U.S. Charge D’Affaires, and referred particularly to a statement by Mr. Grant to the effect that the State Department felt that the Arabs remained unconvinced that Israel would be willing to settle differences with the Arab countries on any terms but its own.
Mrs. Meir also objected to another statement by Mr. Grant that the United States believed the Arabs would be unwilling to meet with Israel at the peace table until some progress had been made in solving major specific problems.
Mrs. Meir was reported to have emphasized to Mr. Bernes that such a formulation completely ignored the “fundamental fact” of Arab refusal to recognize Israel’s existence, Arab insistence on a state of war with Israel, and repeated public Arab statements of their aim to destroy Israel.
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