Jerry Falwell, leader of the Moral Majority, predicted here today that the Reagan Administration would” moderate” its call for a freeze of Israeli settlements on the West Bank and its support of Palestinian self-rule in the territory, linked to Jordan.
Those are key elements of the peace plan announced by President Reagan on September 1, 1982. The Administration has stated repeatedly since then that it stands by the plan which was totally rejected by Israel at the time and failed to induce either Palestinians or Jordan to enter negotiations with Israel.
Falwell, a strong supporter of Reagan, told a press conference here that while he is “the best President in my lifetime,” he disagreed with his formula for a peaceful settlement of the Palestinian problem. “There is no way that Israel can surrender so much of its real estate (the West Bank and Gaza) to hostile forces and hope to remain free … Anyone intimately familiar (with Middle Eastern affairs) cannot agree with that,” Falwell declared.
ARENS: NO CONCESSION ON TERRITORIES
The Moral Majority, a coalition of right-wing evangelical Christians in the U.S., is holding a convention here. The 630 delegates were addressed last night by Defense Minister Moshe Arens who stated flatly that Israel would make no concessions whatever on the West Bank. He said the U.S. should back Israel’s position on the territories. “If the U.S. wants Israel to be strong — and I know that it does — it must understand that Israel cannot be strong if these areas (West Bank and Gaza) are cut off from the territory controlled by the State of Israel,” Arens said.
He said that those who contend that Israeli concessions would relieve it of some of the burdens of defense “simply do not know whom we are dealing with here in the Mideast” where “hostility is endemic to the area.”
Arens, who will accompany Premier Yitzhak Shamir to Washington for a meeting with President Reagan November 29, said “(We) are going hopeful that a new chapter will be opened of better, closer and stronger relations” between Israel and the U.S.
He said however that Israel was disappointed over what he called American “even-handedness between democracy and dictatorship.” Referring to the truck-bomb attack on U.S. marine headquarters at Beirut airport October 23 which killed more than 230 American servicemen, Arens said “It took a massive loss of life” for American leaders to “finally realize whom we are dealing with.”
Elaborating on that theme, Arens noted that in the past, the U.S. kept its cooperation with Israel at a relatively low key in order to pursue an even-handed policy in the region. It was “heart-rending that the recent outrages” were necessary to bring home the true nature of the West’s adversaries in the Middle East, he said. He urged Americans not to take lightly the threats of suicide attacks against U.S., French and Israeli forces in Lebanon made over the weekend by Hussein Mussawi, leader of pro-Iranian Shiite Moslems in Lebanon believed responsible for the earlier attacks on the Americans and French in Beirut and Israeli headquarters in Tyre.
“Considering the atrocities already perpetrated, if we work together, if we use our brains and our guts, we will overcome this as well,” Arens told the American Christian fundamentalists.
Falwell praised Israel for having “liberated Lebanon” and contended that if it were not for Israel, the Soviet Union would now own the oil fields of the Middle East. He also claimed that “four thousand years of history” supports Israel’s claim to all of the Holy Land.
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