Shimon Peres, chairman of Israel’s opposition Labor Party said today that Israel should continue the autonomy negotiations, presently underway between Israel, Egypt and the United States, and strive to conclude an agreement by April 1982, when Israel is to complete its withdrawal from Sinai.
Peres, addressing a meeting of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said that the future autonomy agreement could be implemented first in the Gaza Strip, since the problems there are less complex than the problems in the West Bank. He did not specify.
Peres said that Israel is not interested in creating “a rupture” between the United States and Saudi Arabia. But Israel, he said, is demanding that U. S.-Saudi relations should be based on the mutual goal of reaching a peaceful settlement of the Mideast conflict.
“If the Saudis are seriously interested in peace they would adopt (Security Council) Resolution 242, or would say: this is our position ….” instead of presenting a set of conditions such as the plan by Crown Prince Fahd, Peres said. He added that Israel is willing to negotiate, but will not accept pre-conditions.
The former Defense Minister said that Saudi Arabia is “not doing us a favor” by moving in a peaceful direction. He noted that the Saudis share the Red Sea with Israel, and once Saudi Arabia begins to fortify their side of the shore with military weapons — Israel will do the same on its shore. “Israel will then be able to threaten the Saudi oil fields, but they cannot threaten our oil fields,” Peres said to the laughter of the audience.
SAUDIS ARE NO. 2 ON PEACE LIST
He said that the Labor Party still considers the “Jordanian option” to be the most realistic option for the future of the West Bank. “The Jordanian option is the Israeli option,” Peres said, claiming that negotiations between Israel and Jordan on the future of the West Bank is the best guarantee against the establishment of a PLO state. He said that in the past he considered Jordan to be the second–after Egypt — on the peace list, but today Jordan is the third after Saudi Arabia.
Peres also said that the conversion of Israel “to a bi-national state,” presumably by annexing the West Bank, “will be a tragic mistake.” Israel, he declared “must stay a Jewish State.”
Replying to a question on his party’s opposition to the recent strategic cooperation agreement signed by the United States and Israel, Peres said the opposition was on a number of points. He said the agreement was not clear about “what Israel should do” in a crisis and did not treat equally Israel and the U. S. “since any U. S. undertaking must be approved by Congress.”
In addition, Peres said, “we are unhappy that Soviet Russia was mentioned by name,” contrary to all other international agreements the U. S. had signed. He contended that mentioning the Soviet Union might harm the position of Soviet Jews.
“We would like to see,” Peres said, “a strategic agreement (between Israel and the U. S.) coupled with a political agreement” that would address itself to solving the Arab-Israeli conflict.
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