Peres Says Syria is Israel’s Most Dangerous Neighbor

Premier Shimon Peres answered a wide range of questions on domestic and foreign policy matters during a tour of northern Israel Tuesday. He pointed to Syria as the most dangerous and “most radical” of Israel’s neighbors.

He expressed concern over the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and economic deterioration in the region. On the home front, he reiterated that he intends to abide by the rotation-of-power agreement with Likud, but mentioned two conditions.

Under the Labor-Likud coalition agreement, Peres must turn over the office of Prime Minister to Herut’s Yitzhak Shamir next October 13. But the failure of the Herut convention last week to endorse Shamir as party leader has raised doubts about the rotation. The agreement specifies that only Shamir will be Peres’ successor.

“Regarding rotation, I am firm in my belief in implementing it,” Peres told reporters. He added, however, that rotation would be implemented if two conditions are Met–progress toward peace and a genuine healing of the country’s economic ills without preference for one sector over another.

He said Labor Party figures who have voiced opinions to the contrary were expressing their own personal views. The Party has not yet taken an official stand, he said. There has been pressure on Peres from some Laborites to cancel the rotation agreement in view of the bitter power struggle within Herut which caused its convention to break up in chaos.

SEARCH FOR PEACE MUST CONTINUE

Peres stressed that “Israel must make an unceasing effort” to search for peace with its neighbors. He said that Israel has offered King Hussein of Jordan immediate, direct peace negotiations. But Hussein believed he could bring the Palestine Liberation Organization into the peace talks. Only lately did he realize that while he might not be able to enter peace negotiations without the PLO, he could not do so with the current PLO leadership, Peres said.

He said that both Syria and Iran are making efforts to gain control of Lebanon, the latter by providing financial support to the extremist “Hezbollah” movement, an organization that “has no problem in killing people, in murdering people from all nations–not only ours, by the way,” Peres said.

He said the current deployment of the Israel Defense Force with respect to Lebanon is the best possible under present circumstances. The IDF will withdraw from the border security zone “when they (terrorists) stop sending car bombs to attack our border,” Peres said. He reiterated that Israel has no designs on Lebanese territory or its water resources. Its primary interest is to protect the northern border towns from attack.

Peres observed that Israel’s “problems with Lebanon no longer stem from relations between Israel and Lebanon in and of themselves, but are more the fruit of the sad situation in Lebanon itself.” As long as tension continues in other parts of Lebanon, the situation on the border will not improve, he said.

Peres maintained, as he has on many occasions in the past, that Syria is the “most radical” of Israel’s neighbors and its President, Hafez Assad, the most radical Arab leader and “the most serious in his radicalism.” Nevertheless, he suggested that Israel refrain from polemics with Syria. Its policy should be “as little talk as possible and as much alertness as possible,” he said. Assad continues to seek “strategic parity” with Israel but “he still has a long way to go,” Peres added.