Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir of Israel renewed his longstanding request to participate in face-to-face peace talks with Jordan’s King Hussein and pledged here Thurday night that “once we sit at the table, we shall not get until an agreement is reached.”
“I once again invite King Hussein to join us in direct, face-to-face negotiations, without preconditions, to determine our future relationship and co-existence,” said Shamir.
The prime minister said Israel would like to “play host” to the Jordanian monarch, as it did when the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat made his historic, November 1977 visit to Jerusalem, which Shamir noted occurred “exactly 10 years ago today.”
“But if necessary, we shall travel anywhere,” said Shamir, adding that his invitation also applies to “any other leader of an Arab state who will be ready to talk with us and exercise his influence for the sake of negotiations and peace.”
The prime minister disclosed these latest peace ideas during a major policy address to more than 3,000 people attending the 56th General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations, which convened here through Sunday.
Shamir’s speech was descirbed by his aides as the major statement of his six-day visit to the United States. In addition to Shamir’s talk, the Thursday evening plenary session feathured brief remarks by Mendel Kaplan, the new chairman of the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency for Israel, broadcast live on huge television screens via satellite from Johannesburg.
KAPLAN: ‘INSIST ON EXCELLENCE’
Kaplan spoke of the need to “insist on excellence” in selecting officers of the agency, which in recent years has been plagued by bureaucratic inefficiency and, according to some accounts, corruption.
The remark appeared to be in defense of a recent move taken by prominent diaspora fund-raisers on the agency Board of Governors to block the candidacy of Akiva Lewinsky for chairmanship of the agency executive.
Kaplan also spoke of the need to remove duplications in the work done by the agency, the World Zionist Organization and the Israeli government in such areas as encouraging immigration to Israel, as well as the absorption of those who come on aliya.
Aliya was also a main theme of Shamir’s speech. He spoke of Israel as a haven for Jews from lands of distress, noting that the recent exodus of Jews from Ethiopai “represents the first time in history that black people were transported from Africa not for slavery but to freedom.
“But for those still in Africa, as well as for our brothers and sisters in Syria, time is running out,” he added.
The prime minister also pointed out that “time is of the essence for the Jews of the Soviet Union.” And he urged that those Soviet Jews who are allowed to leave be flown directly to Israel, instead of Vienna, where many decide to immigrate to the United States and other diaspora countries.
Shamir also took pains to encourage his American listeners to make aliya or at least short visits. The premier emphasized that “every Jew, with absolutely no exception, is welcome in Israel and can become an Israeli citizen under the Law of Return. Nobody has ever questioned the legitimacy and absolute equality of any Jew – Orthodox, Conservative or Reform.”
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