Premier Yitzhak Rabin has served notice that any changes in the texts of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 or in the letters of invitation to the Geneva peace conference on the Middle East would automatically release Israel from all of its obligations under those resolutions. Resolutions 242 and 338 provide the framework for the Geneva conference and for the 1974 disengagement agreements on the Syrian and Egyptian fronts.
Rabin delivered his warning in an address at the annual Nov. 29 (Palestine Partition Day) luncheon tendered by local editors and the Foreign Press Association here. It was aimed at the current attempts to involve the Palestine Liberation Organization directly in the Middle East peace talks, a condition demanded by Syria for agreeing to the extension of the United Nations Disengagement Observers Force (UNDOF) on the Golan Heights which expires at midnight tonight.
(At the UN headquarters in New York, the Security Council resumed discussion today after seven hours of private discussions Friday and three more closed meetings yesterday failed to break an impasse on a formula to extend the UNDOF mandate. (See separate story.)
Rabin indicated that if there was any linkage between renewal of the UNDOF mandate and any other matter, Israel might renounce resolutions 242 and 338. He repeated Israel’s unqualified refusal to deal with the PLO under any circumstances and reiterated Israel’s position that the Palestinian question can be dealt with only in the framework of peace negotiations with Jordan.
DEAL WITH SYRIA RULED OUT
Rabin said flatly that Israel had no interest in any deal UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim might have made with Syrian President Hafez Assad whom he visited in Damascus last week that would include a reference to the Palestinians in a resolution extending UNDOF. He said any such linkage would be a violation of the agreed framework for negotiations and would smack of an imposed solution.
He said that Israel, which agrees to a six-month extension of UNDOF, would be prepared to attend a reconvened Mideast peace conference after Syria agrees to a similar extension without conditions. If Syria refuses, it will have to bear the full consequences of the failure to renew UNDOF. Rabin said.
He charged that Damascus’ introduction of the Palestinian issue into the UNDOF matter was part and parcel of a Soviet-Syrian strategy aimed against Israel and against the Israeli-Egyptian interim accord signed last September and was a blatant attempt to dictate the terms for peace talks next year.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
