Israel Begins Diplomatic Contacts with Security Council Members to Forestall Meeting

The Foreign Ministry announced today that Israel has begun a round of diplomatic contacts with member nations of the United Nations Security Council. Most observers believe it is an attempt to forestall a Soviet move to convene the Security Council in order to pressure Israel to backtrack from its refusal to return to the pre-June, 1967 borders. The first contact took place yesterday when Premier Golda Meir and Foreign Minister Abba Eban met with the United States Charge d’Affaires, Owen Zurhellen. Eban received the Belgian Ambassador, today and will meet tomorrow with the Japanese Ambassador and the Argentine Ambassador. The Italian Foreign Minister, Aldo-Moro, is due here tomorrow on an official visit. Eban is scheduled to meet with the Italian Ambassador in the next few days. (In Washington, the Nixon administration has imposed silence on official dealing in the Middle East because of the delicate state of the Jarring talks. Some diplomatic sources said that Israel’s refusal to withdraw completely from the Sinai was not entirely inflexible. They said the issue could be negotiated provided that Egypt satisfied Israel by making its demand for total withdrawal a “negotiating position” rather than a pre-condition;)

Israel Galili, a member of Premier Golda Meir’s “inner circle,” disclosed last night that Mrs. Meir recently indicated Israel’s willingness to consider an “interim solution”–no peace and no war. He said he would not rule out the possibility that a deadlock in the Jarring talks might cause this subject to emerge again in the future. Galili, a Minister-Without-Portfolio in the Cabinet, told members of the Labor Alignment Knesset faction that Israeli leaders have made it clear in Washington what is the basic elements of Israeli policy on territorial matters. Nevertheless, he said, the U.S. has expressed dissatisfaction with the latest Israeli note sent by Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Yosef Tekoah, through UN mediator Gunnar Jarring. He said Israel was presently involved in a “strenuous argument” with the U.S. Egypt, on the other hand, for all of its display of dissatisfaction with the Israeli note has not said that it would quit the Jarring talks, Galili observed. The Knesset house committee last night rejected an appeal by the Gahal opposition faction against a presidium decision not to debate President Nixon’s State of the World message.