Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir has indicated that he will be flexible and listen to all points of view on the Middle East peace process.
He told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday that while the Camp David accords must be the cornerstone of any peace settlement, he does not have to hold strictly to every letter of the 1978 agreement signed by Israel, Egypt and the United States.
“I am not a dogmatic person. I stick to the Camp David accords, but this does not mean sticking to every word and every comma, because things have changed with the time, “Shamir told the committee.
He was responding to complaints from both left- and right-wing members. Yossi Sarid of the dovish Citizens Rights Movement advised Shamir not to go to Washington in April with “that same old lady, Camp David.”
Geula Cohen of the ultranationalist Tehiya Party and Likud Knesset member Uzi Landau expressed concern that Washington might force Shamir to yield to concessions.
The prime minister responded, “One cannot escape. I must face the questions and ideas which wait for me in the United States, even if they contradict my own beliefs.”
He gave the committee a detailed briefing of his talks with French President Francois Mitterrand in Paris last week.
The two are at extreme odds over the peace process. Mitterrand is pressing for an international conference under U.N. auspices, with the Palestine Liberation Organization participating.
Shamir has forcefully ruled out any Israeli contact with the PLO. He said Israel would negotiate with elected Arab representatives in the administered territories.
In the absence of elections, he proposed that the Arab countries could form a “temporary Palestinian representation” that would join in the negotiations.
Mitterrand reportedly told him, “Had I been Israeli, I would have thought as you do. But I am a Frenchman and I have my own interests.”
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