Israel-U.S. Showdown Looms over Administration’s Recent Statements on Elements of Peace Settlement

A possible showdown between Israel and the United States loomed over the weekend in connection with recent remarks by President Carter and other Administration officials regarding a Middle East peace settlement. Israeli leaders were seriously concerned by Carter’s suggestions that Israel’s withdrawal to its 1967 borders, a Palestinian homeland and compensation for Palestinian refugees were incorporated in United Nations resolutions on which future peace negotiations must be based. (See News Analysis on p. 3.)

Premier Yitzhak Robin and Foreign Minister Yigal Allon expressed fear at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting that Carter’s statements might cause the Arabs to harden their positions. Allon disputed Carter’s references to General Assembly resolutions, asserting that the only binding resolutions with regard to a Mideast settlement were Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 which do not contain the elements mentioned by Carter. "The U.S. government has always supported the principles implied in those resolutions. It is impossible to change those principles unilaterally," he said. He warned that any such change would jeopardize whatever progress has been mode so for and the prospects for future progress toward a peace settlement.

Rabin, presiding over his first Cabinet session since he went on vocation last month, was apprehensive lest the remarks by Administration officials crystallize into an "overall American settlement plan" despite the fact that the Americans have said repeatedly that they have no such plan.

DINITZ STATES ISRAEL’S POSITION TO VANCE

Allon informed the Cabinet that Israel’s Ambassador in Washington, Simcha Dinitz, met with Secretary of State Cyrus Vance on Saturday to inform him of Israel’s disquietude.

(After his meeting with Vance, Dinitz told reporters that no UN resolutions required Israel to give up all occupied Arab territories, allow creation of a Palestinian homeland or agree to compensate Arab refugees. In connection with the latter, he said that "Anytime compensation is going to be discussed, we have valid claims for hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees for compensation," a reference to Jews forced to leave Arab countries after Israel was formed. He said "I emphasized to the Secretary that Israel believes UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 continue to be the only basis for negotiations. None of those two resolutions call for an Israeli withdrawal to 1967 lines. None of them call for a Palestinian homeland. None of them call for compensation." Dinitz said "We are not arguing with the President here, we are stating our position and we are happy to learn that is the United States position also.")

(President Carter was quoted in a U.S. News and World Report interview yesterday as saying "Our presumption is that the government of Israel will continue to join us and the Arab countries in seeking a permanent solution in the Middle East. . . based on the United Nations resolutions that have been espoused time and again by the nations involved. If Israel should disavow those commitments, which have been the basis for the hopes for peace for years, then that would be a very profound change and I think the consequences of it can’t be accurately predicted).

According to an Algerian News Agency report today, Carter said in a letter to President Houari Boumedienne of Algeria that "To let pass the favorable opportunity which is available now to reach an agreement could mean a disaster for the Middle East and perhaps also for the international political and economic order." The Algerian News Agency also quoted Carter as saying that "Our policy will not be affected by changes of leadership in any country of the Middle East."

Carter has stressed the latter point since Israel’s elections on May 17 resulted in an upset victory for Likud over the Labor Party which has governed the Jewish State from the day it was founded. His remarks that are seriously troubling Israelis came after Likud leader Menachem Begin’s post-election statements that the West Bank is an integral part of Israel by historic right and therefore must be viewed as "liberated territory" rather than occupied land or land subject to annexation.

SCHINDLER SEES ESCALATION

Meanwhile, Rabbi Alexander Schindler, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations who visited Israel last week, expressed grave concern Friday over what he termed an escalation in statements by the American Administration. He told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that those statements were at variance with the picture President Carter pointed before the Israeli elections. Schindler, who returned to the U.S. today, said he would call a special meeting of the Presidents Conference to report on his Israeli visit and to take up the political issues that have developed in recent days. He indicated that the Presidents Conference would seek an "exact interpretation" of Administration statements.

Schindler described to the JTA what he meant by an escalation. He said the Administration began with a call for honest negotiations and for a desire to reach peace among all the parties which he interpreted as a normalization of relations between Israel and its neighbors, including trade and tourism.

Then, Schindler said, this escalated to a broad outline of a plan described as a conceptual frame-work which suggested perimeters within which the parties concerned could negotiate. But then come statements based on certain presumptions which constitute U.S. policy based on the fact that the U.S. joined certain resolutions and these were topped when a White House spokesman expanded the President’s references to Security Council resolutions by adding General Assembly resolutions of 1947 and 1948, Schindler said. He questioned how, under the circumstances, it was still possible to regard the U.S. as an honest broker without a plan in hand to be imposed on the parties.