Premier Yitzhak Rabin expressed concern Tuesday night that the United States may change its attitude toward the Palestinian issue next year and make concessions to Arab terrorist organizations.
Opening Israel’s Independence Day celebrations, Rabin said in a television interview that “today there are no differences of opinion between Israel and the U.S. as regards the basic approach of how to promote the political process towards a Middle East peace.”
But, he added, “I cannot guarantee that the U.S. government will continue to think so forever. It is not to be ruled out that in 1977 we shall see tendencies” to concessions to the terrorist organizations, and namely, erosion in the U.S. position on the Palestinian issue.”
Observers here noted that Rabin’s statement might have been in the way of alerting Israel to possible changes in the views of America after the Presidential elections where a new Administration might take a tougher attitude toward ending the Israeli-Arab conflict in order to shift priorities to either domestic issues or to developing new relationships in other parts of the world.
Another implied concern in Rabin’s statement may be, observers added, a fear that the U.S. may interpret the recent victories by militants and pro-PLO sympathizers in the West Bank elections as an endorsement of the PLO leadership.
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