Premier Yitzhak Rabin said last night that Israel fully supports Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger’s step-by-step approach as the “best and most realistic method” of making progress toward a settlement of the Middle East conflict. Although he conceded that the method had its dangers, he maintained in an address before 500 delegates attending the Sixth Plenary Assembly of the World Jewish Congress here that other methods were fraught with even greater dangers and the most dangerous of all was to do nothing.
Rabin said that Israel would question Kissinger, who is due here early next week, as to the significance of recent public statements by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat that neither Egypt nor Syria are planning to attack Israel. Sadat made that pledge before a group of influential Egyptians in Cairo and at a press conference in Paris during his recent state visit to France. He said he could confidently speak for the Damascus regime because Egypt and Syria have a joint military command.
Rabin suggested last night that if Sadat is indeed sincere, his pledge not to attack Israel should be incorporated into a formal written agreement with Israel. If Sadat did this, it would represent “a new opening…a great chance” for progress toward a full peace settlement in the Middle East, the Premier said. He added that if Sadat was being less than honest, it was well to expose him. But if he was sincere, he could prove it by his willingness to embody a no-attack pledge in a partial settlement which Kissinger will attempt to advance on his Mideast visit.
SEEN AS ASSURANCE TO KISSINGER
The Premier’s affirmation that Israel adheres to Kissinger’s step-by-step approach was viewed by observers as intended to assure the Secretary of State in advance of his arrival here, that Israel will cooperate. Rabin apparently considered this necessary in view of the publicly expressed doubts by leading personalities of the efficacy of Kissinger’s method.
The step-by-step approach was questioned by Nahum Goldmann, president of the WJC, at a press conference before the opening of the Plenary Assembly, and by former Foreign Minister Abba Eban in a French newspaper interview. Both Goldmann and Eban spoke openly in favor of resuming the Geneva peace conference. A similar view has been hinted by Rabin’s Defense Minister, Shimon Peres, though the latter still supports the government’s line favoring the step-by-step method.
The Premier stated last night that this was “in practice” the policy of his government and he vigorously defended it. He said that if Kissinger’s efforts failed, there would be no alternative but to go to Geneva. Nevertheless, by supporting the American approach, even if it failed eventually, Israel would re-enforce its relations with Washington and the military strengthening of Israel would continue, Israel would know that it had sincerely and energetically explored the most promising avenue to an accord with Egypt, Rabin said. He described Egypt as the prime mover in the Arab world, the nation that launched every Mideast war in the past and concluded every war.
PRESSURE, NOT PEACE CONFERENCE
“My assessment,” Rabin said, “is that the ‘peace conference’ which (Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei) Gromyko and Syria’s (President Hafez) Assad refer to at Geneva would be a pressure conference rather than a peace conference–a pressure conference at which the Arabs and the Soviets with the political support of many other nations–would force Israel, and perhaps the U.S. too, into a solution that would not bring peace.”
On the other hand, Rabin said, Israel does not fear Geneva and, if necessary, it will go there and boldly make its claims for peace and state its negotiating position on territories. Rabin added that he was convinced that the majority of Israelis would agree to far-reaching territorial concessions if the government could present them with a practical and tangible chance of peace with any of its neighbors in exchange for ceded territories.
The key to the future of the Mideast conflict “in my personal view” lies in relations between Israel and Egypt, the Premier said. If Egypt’s leaders decide to look to their own people’s interests rather than aim for elusive hegemony in the Arab world, then there will be a basis for negotiations, Rabin said.
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