Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir left for Europe today in a last ditch effort to persuade the Western European allies to abandon their proposed Middle East initiative to after the current peace process based on the Camp David accords, possibly by amending Security Council Resolution 242.
He will visit the Benelux countries (Belgium Holland and Luxembourg) and Denmark and is due back in Israel next week when the leaders of the nine member states of the European Economic Community (EEC) meet in Venice with the Middle East on their agenda.
Premier Menachem Begin won a vote of confidence in the Knesset last night for his stinging rebuke to the European countries over their proposed initiative. He expressed appreciation to President Carter for opposing the initiative. He also formally announced his takeover of the Defense Ministry post until on acceptable candidate can be found to replace Ezer Weizman who resigned on May 26.
The vote in the Knesset was 59-48, split on party lines. The coalition approved Begin’s positions and the opposition denounced them.
REMINDS EUROPE OF PAST
In an angry speech to the Knesset, Begin invoked the events of 40 years ago to support his claim that the Western European countries have no right to demand that Israel, or the U.S., recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization or to interfere in Israel’s determination of its security needs. He spoke of the German peoples’ “unprecedented historic crime” against the Jewish people and recalled that many Western European countries collaborated with the Nazis during World War II.
Begin mentioned specifically the Vichy regime in France and referred to Fascist Italy’s collaboration in the “final solution.” France and West Germany, along with Britain, are pressing for a European initiative in the Middle East.
Begin said he hoped his tenure as Defense Minister would be a short one and that a permanent minister will soon be appointed. He announced the Cabinet’s reappointment of Mordechai Zipori as Deputy Defense Minister.
Shimon Peres, chairman of the Labor Party, accused Begin of using the European situation to distract the Knesset’s attention from what he said was the most serious issue at hand, “the reappointment of a Deputy Minister for a ministry without a minister.” Peres, who served as Defense Minister in the last Labor led government, said that as a man who devoted many years to building Israel’s defenses, he was appalled by the present spectacle of defense being treated as a plaything and assigned a part-time minister. He was referring to Begin’s efforts to avert a coalition crisis by assuming the defense post after his candidate, Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Shamir’s replacement, Energy Minister Yitzhak Modai, were opposed by various coalition partners.
Peres spoke against persistent heckling from the Likud faction. Begin also received boos and catcalls from the opposition. The session was halted at one point when the Premier engaged in a shouting match with Hodash (Communist) MK Tewfiq Toubi who accused the government of responsibility for yesterday’s bomb outrages against Arab mayors on the West Bank.
BEGIN SENDS CONDOLENCES
Begin said that “as a man” he regretted the attacks and sent his condolences to the injured mayors and their families. He called on both Jews and Arabs to preserve order in the occupied territories.
Begin was effusive in his praise of President Carter for pledging to veto any attempt in the United Nations to amend Resolution 242 “the basis of the Camp David agreements.” He also cited the closing resolutions of the El Fatah meeting in Damascus Sunday as proof that the PLO is still bent on the physical and political destruction of Israel. El Fatah, the terrorist arm of the PLO, called for a democratic Palestinian state, meaning the eradication of Israel.
Begin explained of some length the Knesset’s resolution declaring united Jerusalem the permanent capital of Israel which prompted President Anwar Sodat of Egypt to suspend the autonomy negotiations with Israel last month.
The resolution was submitted by MK Geula Cohen of the ultra-nationalist Tehiya faction and was referred to committee. Begin said the government would not take any action on that measure but noted that the Cohen bill said in effect nothing more than he had stated in his letters to Carter and Sadat at Camp David and re-stated several times since. The letters recalled the Knesset’s decision of June, 1967 empowering the government to apply Israeli jurisdiction to any of the captured territories. The government subsequently applied it to East Jerusalem.
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