Lord Caradon, the British ambassador to the UN, told the UN Correspondents Association at a lunch today that while “there must be withdrawal” by Israel from the occupied territories, there can be no Middle East agreement without the Arabs’ “acceptance of the state of Israel.” Stating that “secure and recognized boundaries still have to be stipulated in an agreement,” Lord Caradon declared that withdrawal was only part of the UN cease-fire resolution, not an a priori requirement for a solution. Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban made that same point in the Knesset yesterday. Lord Caradon said that “the removal or destruction of the state of Israel” was not an “acceptable solution.” But he indicated that any peace settlement “must include the Palestine Arabs,” even though they are not, as he put it, an “entity.”
The British ambassador, who reluctantly voted for Zambia’s anti-Israel resolution in the UN on the grounds of opposition to all violence, contended that Jerusalem was “the heart of the matter.” He said it would be a “disaster” if one country owned it “to the exclusion of others,” adding: “But certainly it must not be divided, but be a symbol of unity.” Lord Caradon echoed the Israeli position that in the interest of peace, “everything is negotiable,” and indicated he considered Jerusalem to part of that package. The ambassador expressed hope that the Big Four could come to an agreement on the Mideast impasse.
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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.
