Israel has expressed serious concern that the United States is embarking on a new policy approach in the Middle East that would imply support for the PLO under certain conditions as a means of leverage on Syria to negotiate a second disengagement agreement with Israel on the Golan Heights.
President Hafez Assad of Syria has stated repeatedly that he will make no further political moves if the Palestinian problem is not taken up and the U.S., which continues to say it will not tolerate stalemate or stagnation in the Mideast peace process, appears to take him at his word, Israeli sources said today.
The Cabinet angrily denounced what it described as testimony by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Harold Saunders before a Congressional committee in Washington last week in which. Saunders allegedly intimated that the U.S. would be open to the idea of a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip if the PLO recognized Israel and accepted UN Resolutions 242 and 338 as prior conditions. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger met with Israeli Ambassador Simcha Dinits after Saunders’ appearance before the committee to assure him that there has been no change in the U.S. position on the PLO.
Kissinger asked Dinitz to convey to the Israeli government that the U.S. still believes that the Palestine issue must be incorporated in eventual negotiations between Israel and Jordan and that the U.S. has no desire to raise the issue at this time. That is more or less the policy of Israel which holds that a Palestinian solution must be found within the framework of a future settlement with Jordan.
RABIN, MINISTERS NOT FULLY CONVINCED
But Premier Yitzhak Rabin and his ministers apparently were not fully convinced by Kissinger’s assurances, relayed to them by Dinitz. A Cabinet communique issued today said it had the full transcript of Saunders’ testimony before it and agreed unanimously that it was replete with “errors and misrepresentations.” The communique said that Israel’s “reservations and qualifications” would be brought “in full” to the attention of the U.S. government.
Unofficially, it is understood here that Kissinger told Dinitz he had not seen Saunders’ testimony before it was presented to the House committee, Although Kissinger specifically denied to Dinitz that the testimony represented the beginning of an Administration effort to prepare public opinion for a shift in U.S. policy on the Palestinian issue, the feeling here tonight is that such indeed is the case.
By shifting to a possible Palestinian solution involving the PLO, Washington will seek to persuade Syria that its step-by-step Mideast policy would, in due time, incorporate progress on the West Bank-Palestinian issue, sources here said.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
