Premier Yitzhak Rabin predicted over the weekend that Egypt would initiate next year a campaign for an over all settlement in the Middle East on Cairo’s terms. Speaking at the ZOA House in Tel Aviv, Rabin said this will not prevent Israel from initiating her own proposals since the government has already adopted an overall concept for achieving peace.
The Premier said he did not foresee “real” political moves in the Mideast before next spring. He said Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s latest “peace offensive” was primarily a propaganda and not a political move. But Rabin added that Egypt’s peace initiative in 1977 would come with the passive and perhaps the active support of Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Rabin said Sadat expressed his readiness for peace in 1971 when Gunnar Jarring, the special United Nations envoy, tried to mediate in the Mideast. He said Sadat’s terms were better then, since he did not condition an Israel-Egyptian agreement on similar accords with the other Arab states nor did he push for a Palestinian state. “Thus I have not found any changes in the Egyptian policy.” Rabin said, “and certainly not positive changes.”
During the last two or three years, Israel has adopted a general concept of the targets to aim for in the search for peace, Rabin said. “There is no justification for the repeated demand of some liberals for a new Israeli initiative that would be accepted by the Arabs,” he declared.
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