No Peace Talks Until Dayan Returns from U.s.; Brezhnev Optimistic About Peace

A government decision on Israel’s return to the Jarring talks will not be made until after Defense Minister Moshe Dayan returns from his visit to the United States some time next month, it was learned here today. Gen. Dayan will be in the U.S. in mid-December and has scheduled talks with top Nixon administration officials and the possibility of a meeting with the President. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned that he is expected to finalize an understanding still to be reached with the U.S. government on the conditions that will warrant Israel’s return to the peace negotiations under Dr. Jarring’s auspices. Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin, who returns to Washington today after being called home for consultations last week, will continue the “dialogue” with U.S. officials that was begun by Foreign Minister Abba Eban last month. Sources here said Ambassador Rabin would confine himself to “sounding out” the State Department in order to establish the extent to which the U.S. is prepared to go to satisfy Israel’s conditions. So far as is known, the Cabinet has yet to decide what those conditions will be. At a pre-departure press conference today, Mr. Rabin said the U.S. was not exerting pressure on Israel to return to the Jarring talks although Washington was obviously very anxious to have the talks resumed. He said the Americans were afraid it would be impossible to get the current cease-fire extended a second time unless concurrent peace talks were underway.

Deputy Premier Yigal Allon told a Labor Party meeting here last night that Israel must return to the Jarring talks “for both moral and political reasons so that nobody can ever say in the future that we neglected a chance for peace.” Mr. Allon added however that Israel’s return must be based on conditions that include its “effective security borders and political realism,” He said there were differences of opinion between Israel and the U.S. but observed that Israel can influence Washington. “Compare the Rogers plan of 1969 with the U.S. position now,” he said. Referring to the Soviet Union, the Deputy Premier said that if Moscow wanted to re-establish diplomatic relations with Israel, it would find Israel more than willing. (Soviet Communist Party chief Leonid I. Brezhnev said in a nationally televised speech yesterday that he was optimistic over Middle East peace prospects but “it is now difficult to predict with precision how events will develop in the Middle East.” He branded Israel an aggressor but claimed that it was effectively isolated by world opinion while the Arabs are “getting growing support from all peace-loving states.” Mr. Brezhnev claimed that the current situation “creates favorable conditions for the liquidation of the Middle East hotbed of international tension.”)