Foreign Minister Abba Eban told the Cabinet at its regular weekly session today that United Nations peace emissary Gunnar V. Jarring did not offer any new ideas to Israel at a meeting last Friday with Israel Ambassador Yosef Tekoah at the UN, Eban also briefed the Cabinet on the meeting last Thursday between Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States and US Assistant Secretary of State Joseph Sisco. However, the Cabinet secretary refused to give any details of the Rabin-Sisco meeting.
The widely-bruited foreign policy clash between Eban and Rabin was taken up briefly at the Cabinet meeting when Moshe Kol, the Tourism Minister, asked about it. Kol implied that the publicity was harmful. Israel Galili, Minister-Without-Portfolio and confidant to Premier Golda Meir, intervened to say the matter was being handled by Mrs. Meir and Eban and that therefore there was no point in the Cabinet discussing it.
Gen. Rabin had cabled Eban a suggestion that Israel withdraw from the Jarring talks, which the Swedish envoy sought to resume last Friday at UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim’s request. Rabin also proposed that Israel reduce its UN representation. Both proposals found their way into the press. Eban last week told newsmen Rabin’s ideas had not found a single supporter in the Cabinet but another Minister, believed to be Galili, said later that Rabin’s suggestions had not been brought up before the Cabinet. The Cabinet secretary declined any comment to set the record straight.
In an interview after a television interview here yesterday, Rabin said he was “shocked” that his messages to Eban had been released, particularly, he said, since the released reports were not accurate. What he had suggested, he declared, was that Israel’s Foreign Ministry “learn the lessons” from reverses at the Security Council. He suggested that Israel refuse to return to the Jarring talks until Dr. Jarring agreed to try to bring the two sides together in direct negotiations. He added that he had not suggested that his ideas be made public.
Rabin said in the television interview that both Israel and the United States felt the best chance for Mideast peace lay in an interim agreement for re-opening of the Suez Canal. He said Israel should therefore concentrate on that goal and try to “close the option” on an overall settlement based on Security Council Resolution 242, Dr. Jarring’s efforts and the UN.
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