Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s new ambassador to the United States, told the National Press Club here this afternoon that Israel could control the occupied Arab territories for as long as 20 years if necessary if there were no real peace settlement with the Arabs. “From the security point of view, there is no reason why we can’t,” he said. Ambassador Rabin, who was Chief of Staff of Israel’s armed forces during last June’s Six-Day War, received a warm greeting from the audience of journalists and writers who jammed the auditorium to hear his maiden address and to fire questions at the Israeli envoy. He declared that Israel urgently wanted a real and permanent “contractual” peace with the Arabs but said that the only way to achieve such a peace and to bring about the withdrawal of Israel from occupied territories was through a face-to-face confrontation with the Arabs.
“We are ready within the framework of such negotiations to come to an agreement on the recognized and secure boundaries of the future,” he declared. He said that Israel had no objection to the U.N.’s special envoy, Dr. Gunnar Jarring, serving as chairman at direct Israel-Arab talks. The Ambassador addressed a rhetorical question to the Arab nations: “If you are not ready to talk peace with us, if you are not ready to abandon your policy of seeking Israel’s destruction, why then do we have to withdraw even one inch? Just to hand you back the areas which served in the past and will serve in the future as a springboard for your aggression?”
He said there are two basic reasons why the Arabs persist in their hostility. One, he said, stemmed from the hatred of Israel nurtured by Arab leaders to the extent that their own freedom to maneuver is greatly limited. The other is a result of the intrusion of the Soviet Union into the Middle East which holds out to the Arabs the hope of recovering their lost territories without changing their anti-Israel policy. Gen. Rabin doubted that the Soviets want to see warfare renewed in the Middle East. “But 1 would say that she would not like to see a peace settlement and an end to the tensions in the region unless it be on her own terms,” he said. The continued tension and instability in the area, he said, was one of the factors that enabled the USSR to establish herself in the Middle East and to extend her military presence there.
On the subject of American arms shipments to Jordan, Ambassador Rabin said no Israeli was happy to see a country that waged war last June being re-armed while there was still no peace. On the other hand, he observed, it is ‘perhaps better to have someone other than the Russians in Jordan.” With reference of France’s continued embargo on the shipment of Mirage jet planes to Israel, Gen. Rabin said “although Frances refuses to deliver the planes bought and paid for in 1965, Israelis feel a debt to the French Government and people for past assistance and for the quality of French arms.” He said there was no doubt that Israel will try to obtain jet planes from other sources.
Ambassador Rabin side-stepped a question on the Viet Nam war. Asked what he, as a general, would do in Viet Nam, he replied that no responsible general would say anything about a war that he did not know at first hand. Asked why Israel forces stopped at the Suez Canal in last June’s war. he replied; “try to imagine what the world would have said if we had advanced any further.”
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