Solving the Palestinian Refugee Problem by Creating a Palestinian State is Not Acceptable to Israel

Shlomo Avineri, the director general of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, declared here last night that the proposal to solve the Palestinian refugee problem by creating a Palestinian state is “unacceptable to us.” He said this was the view of his government as well as the “consensus” of the people of Israel.

Avineri’s remarks were made before 1000 persons attending a dinner at the Shoreham Hotel as part of the 18th annual two-day policy conference of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Among those attending the dinner were two of President Carter’s chief advisors, Robert Lipshutz, his Counsel, and Stuart Eizenstadt, the director of the President’s Domestic Council, and the new American Ambassador to Israel, Samuel Lewis.

Speaking about the same time Carter was hosting King Hussein of Jordan at a White House dinner, Avineri said the solution to the Palestinian problem can be found “within the context of the Kingdom of Jordan” with the West Bank permanently demilitarized as part of Jordan. “Israel may be able to live with an Arab government on the West Bank but not with an Arab military presence on the West Bank,” Avineri stressed.

Speaking before AIPAC earlier in the day, Israeli Ambassador Simcha Dinitz said Israel will not accept “international promises” or a defense agreement with the United States as a substitute for a “basic change” in the Mideast that will include normal relations and a free exchange of people and commerce. He said Israel must have “defensible borders that Israel can defend by itself and for itself.”

Lipshutz and Eizenstadt left the White House dinner for Hussein to attend the AIPAC banquet. But Vice-President Walter Mondale, who was originally scheduled to address the AIPAC dinner, remained at the White House. Six Senators and about 50 House members also attended the AIPAC dinner last night.

Sen. Frank Church (D.Idoho), who substituted for Mondale, took direct issue with the Arab position that the Palestinian question is at the center of the Mideast dispute. He said the “basic issue” is whether “Israel’s neighbors now accept the legitimacy, the right–not the privilege–of Israel to live in peace as a full sovereign and legitimate state in the Middle East. That is the issue on which there can be no equivocation, no ambiguity, no discrepancy between private and public statements.”

Church said that the Arabs must prove they have abandoned their claim that Israel is an illegitimate state. “Peace, in other words, must be for this generation and not for another generation, and it must be manifested in the normalization of relations–the exchange of ambassadors, commercial intercourse and cultural contacts, so that over time both Arab and Jew may adjust to normalcy.”

WARNING ON ARAB BOYCOTT

Warning against U.S. guarantees for Israel, Church said that while the U.S. has a role in helping negotiations “it is a role which calls for a large degree of discipline in restraining our natural impatience to get on with the job by doing it ourselves.” He also warned against pressures from American companies which will do anything to get their share of the “financial bonanza” from the oil-rich Arab countries, “including compliance with the Arab boycott.”

Sen. Robert Dole (R.Kan.) endorsed Church’s views on the boycott saying the Arab “boycott interferes with international trade” and “it must be met decisively.”

Dole also echoed Church’s views that a Mideast peace requires Israel’s acceptance by the Arabs. “The primary issue is not how far Israel must withdraw but how to guarantee the Israeli people that they are in a position to defend themselves should their enemies choose to attack,” Dole said. “Anything else would be meaningless and useless.” He urged Israel to “stick to your guns insofar as defensible borders are concerned.”