Premier Golda Meir and Foreign Minister Abba Eban sought to assure fellow Israelis over the weekend that they need not fear new pressures from the United States on Israel for compromise now that President Nixon has been re-elected.
Eban also stressed that point at today’s Cabinet meeting where he said that contacts with U.S. officials before and after last Tuesday’s elections, indicated no intended policy changes on the Middle East, though the Americans were hoping for progress toward negotiations for an interim Suez Canal agreement between Israel and Egypt.
Mrs. Meir said in a radio interview that she felt the U.S. was interested in preventing renewed hostilities in the Middle East but that didn’t amount to pressure on Israel. She added that Nixon has learned to understand Israel’s problems although the U.S. has its own interests which Israel must recognize. The Premier said she had no immediate plans to meet Nixon in the near future.
U.S. HAS PRINCIPLE OF NON-COERCION
Eban told the Cabinet today that Washington had no new suggestions to offer on the Middle East at this stage. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said later that both American and Israeli diplomats had raised the question following press speculation in Israel on new American initiatives. Eban said in a radio interview last night that Israelis must believe the U.S. when it says it is opposed to coercion in the Mideast.
“I think that after so many years in which this worry has been expressed without the worry being fulfilled, our people ought to take a far more solid view of Israel’s sovereignty and show a more respectful view toward American statements on the principle of non-coercion.” Eban said. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said today that Eban was undecided about going to New York to attend the upcoming United Nations General Assembly debate on the Middle East.
Israeli Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin sounded a similar note on a taped interview from Washington, broadcast Friday evening. He said he did not expect any new American initiative in the Middle East following the elections. He said he believed U.S. policy in the Middle East would continue on the assumption that an interim agreement between Israel and Egypt was the best way to reach a settlement in the region.
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