State Department Concerned over Cabinet’s Decision on Hebron

The State Department expressed “heightened concern” today over the Israeli Cabinet’s narrow decision yesterday to establish a “Jewish presence” in the West Bonk Arab town of Hebron but withheld definitive comment pending a decision on the matter in the Knesset.

The Department’s chief spokesman Hodding Carter said that “Since we understand the issue is to be discussed by the Knesset’s Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee, I will have no comment beyond the statement of the obvious,” an apparent allusion to the U.S. position that Jewish settlements on the West Bank are “illegal and an obstacle to peace.”

After noting that, the U.S. government has mode it “particularly clear in recent weeks” what its position is on settlements — an allusion to the UN Security Council’s March I resolution on that subject. and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance’s statements before the Senate and the House last week — Carter said “We’ve mode also our concerns known to the Israel government. Those concerns are heightened by the Cabinet’s decision” on Hebron.

Inasmuch as Vance testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee last Friday that the issue of returning Jews to Hebron was not “clear” in his mind, Carter was asked to supply a definition of “settlements” and to soy whether a “school” constitutes a settlement. He replied, “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?”

The view in some quarters that President Carter’s statements of U.S. policy toward Israel in the aftermath of the Security Council resolution differs from Vance’s testimony, prompted a reporter to ask the spokesman if the State Deportment agreed with the President’s statements at yesterday’s White House reception marking the first anniversary of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. The President expressed his commitment that Jerusalem “will remain forever undivided” and said “We oppose the creation of a Palestinian state.” Hodding Carter replied, “Whatever he said, we agree with.”

Spokesman Carter was questioned in connection with Vice President Walter Mondale’s remark to a Jewish audience in New York yesterday that Jews have the right to live anywhere in the world and was asked if that conflicted with the State Department’s policy of “concern” over the settlement of Jews in Hebron. “I don’t have the text (of Mondale’s remarks) and I believe he made a more general statement about what should be the right of human beings,” the State Department spokesman said.

Pressed as to whether Mondale’s views were in line with Israel’s claim that Jews have a right to live on the West Bank, Carter replied, “I’m positive what I said would be endorsed by the Vice President.” He said that Mondale’s statement could be explained as “a general thesis” but that “a particular application may not work.”