The United States yesterday scolded Israel’s Cabinet decision of last Sunday to establish two new settlements on the West Bank but emphasized that the decision does not “fundamentally” affect U.S.-Israel relations. The Carter Administration also said it regrets that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have broken relations with Egypt because of Egypt’s treaty with Israel, but it did not see any change as yet in Saudi Arabia’s pledge to pay the U.S. for warplanes being sold to Egypt.
State Department spokesman Hodding Carter said Israel’s decision on the settlements is “regretable” because it “tends to prejudice the outcome of negotiations” between Egypt and Israel, with the U.S. as a participant, which have not yet begun.
Asked whether he felt Israeli Premier Menachem Begin does not mean it when he speaks of the right of Jews to settle in Samaria and Judaea Carter replied that “the United States wants to assert most firmly it is for the negotiating process itself to determine the future of the area.” He said that “what we are urging is simply actions which are consonant” with the process agreed to by “all sides” on how to proceed to determine the future of the region.
In discussing the issue, Carter said the U.S. will continue “to make clear to Israel our disagreement” regarding the settlements policy and to “urge a different approach.” But, he added, “to the usual question, are we reconsidering our relationship in any fundamental way, the answer is always no.” The new Egyptian-Israeli-American negotiations, Carter said, “are the first realistic efforts in 30 years to bring peace–a peace which comes to grips with the Palestinian issue.”
BEGIN DEFENDS DECISION
(In Jerusalem, Begin told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee yesterday, that unlike previous governments, his government’s policy is to “fill the West Bank with Jews.” Defending the Cabinet’s decision to establish two new settlements at Elon Moreh and Shiloh, Begin said they were being set up for security reasons.
(He pledged that no Arab would be thrown off his land, but private lands that were not actually under cultivation would be seized by the government but would not, however, be expropriated. Legal experts noted the difference is that in expropriation the title passes to the government whereas in seizure the title remains vested in the owner but possession passes to the government.)
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