Officials here today continued to play down the significance of last week’s sea clash, followed by a diplomatic altercation, with the U.S. over an American firm’s oil drilling efforts in the Gulf of Suez. Following last Thursday’s meeting on the subject between Premier Yitzhak Rabin and Ambassador Malcolm Toon, Israeli officials have indicated that they would like the issue now dealt with through channels of “quiet diplomacy” far from the stresses and tensions of media coverage.
The officials are thus uniformly reticent in discussing the affair. They refuse even to furnish information or opinions even on the purely legal aspects of the incident.
The officials speak hopefully of a “pragmatic solution” being evolved, which would apparently satisfy the immediate needs of the firm involved, Amoco, and at the same time not prejudice Israel’s assertion of the right to control the waters of the gulf up to the median line, a right which Washington does not recognize.
The episode is expected to figure in consultations which Ambassador Simcha Dinitz will hold in Jerusalem starting Thursday with Rabin, Foreign Minister Yigal Allon and top officials. Dinitz is expected here Wednesday for talks which were arranged some weeks ago and are not connected with the oil drilling affair. The Cabinet discussed the affair today, sitting as the secret “Ministerial Defense Committee.” Rabin, Allon and Defense Minister Shimon Peres reported on the shooting incident and on the diplomatic follow-up.
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