Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir publicly criticized Egypt in forth-right terms here today for its strident public attacks on Premier Menachem Begin and Israel. There was “an asymmetry” in relations, Shamir told Foreign Ministry staffers in a statement later released by the government press office, and of late the asymmetry had exceeded all proportions.
Shamir referred to attacks on Begin by “men of high rank” (an allusion to recent interviews by President Anwar Sadat) and by the Egyptian media. What is the meaning of the statement (by Sadat in an interview) that Begin has exhausted his capacity to contribute to peace?” Shamir demanded.
“Is the meaning of the peace process ongoing concessions by Israel to every Egyptian demand? Is the meaning of negotiation that one side must make all the concessions, and the other make all the demands?”
Shamir said Israel’s concessions — of the Sinai with its oil, airfields and strategic depth — had been “perhaps unprecedented for a state to make of its own free will. They demonstrated Israel’s constant longing for peace. And now the Prime Minister is being attacked for refusing to make concessions which have no basis whatever in Camp David….”
The Foreign Minister urged the Egyptians, therefore, to conduct negotiations — on all the issues they desired — through the accepted channels between nations at peace with each other, and not over the air waves or in the media.
Shamir also had a word of criticism for “Israeli personalities and groups which lend themselves for Egyptian propaganda purposes. “This was a clear reference to the noted Israeli Orientalist, Prof. Shimon Shamir, who recently met Sadat and then published the Egyptian leader’s strictures against Begin.
On another Mideast matter, Shamir called in the French charge d’affaires, Jacques Butin, to inform him of Israel’s “grave concern” over France’s supply of nuclear equipment to Iraq. Shamir cited statements by Iraqi leaders openly professing their intention “to procure nuclear capability” and noted that Iraq was a leader of the Arab rejectionist front. He said that Iraq regarded itself as in an on-going state of war with Israel.
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