Chaim Herzog, Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations, handed last Friday a paper to Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin of the Soviet Union, acting head of the Soviet delegation, outlining Israel’s position on the problem of a settlement in the Middle East and a Geneva peace conference. Herzog said this was not a reply to the Soviets but an attempt to draw their attention to Israel’s position.
This paper re-stated Israel’s position as presented last Thursday to the General Assembly by Israeli Foreign Minister Yigal Allon:
“We believe that Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 form the only agreed basis both for the nature of the peace and for the method of achieving it. For that reason we are ready to take part in a reconvened Geneva peace conference in its original composition at any mutually acceptable time.
“At such a conference or by any other means which the parties find satisfactory, we would hope to negotiate with each of our neighbors a final peace settlement based on a fair compromise which, on one hand, will provide Israel with defensible borders and on the other satisfy genuine Arab interests including a just and constructive solution to the problem of Palestinian Arab identity within the context of the settlement with our neighbor to the east. Only a peace which serves the peace of Israel and its neighbors will endure.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.