Israel completed the first phase of evacuation of Sinai last night and may start the second phase this week, but Israel still insists that total evacuation requires effective guarantees of freedom of navigation of the Gulf of Akaba, informed circles here asserted today.
Mrs. Golda Meir, Israel Foreign Minister, was scheduled to arrive in Israel from New York tonight for five days of Cabinet consultations. Goal of the talks will be to decide on a strategy to enable Israel to face expected United Nations pressures until such guarantees are obtained, it was reported.
Israel’s effort to link complete withdrawal with advance international guarantees was considered likely to bring the withdrawal issue before the UN General Assembly again. The question now being considered here is what the voting line-up will be in the General Assembly.
Diplomatic circles here were reported as convinced that a two-thirds General Assembly vote for complete withdrawal is certain but hopes were expressed that enough Assembly vote for complete withdrawal is certain but hopes were expressed that enough votes could be mustered in the General Assembly to oppose another withdrawal resolution. Otherwise, it was pointed out, Israel faces the certainty of a strong UN demand for unconditional withdrawal and a return to the situation of blockades of Suez and Akaba shipping which the UN itself had denounced.
Israeli diplomats are convinced that the western nations will not vote for an unconditional withdrawal resolution. Israeli public opinion is steadily hardening against total and unconditional withdrawal, it was reported, and there is growing public readiness to face the possible consequences of Israeli insistence on guarantees as pre-conditions for total withdrawal.
Shmuel Mikunis, Communist member of the Knesset, arrived yesterday from a Moscow visit with a statement that Alexander Abramov, the Soviet Ambassador to Israel who was abruptly recalled when Israel launched the Sinai campaign, will not return to Israel until total evacuation is completed.
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