Defense Minister Moshe Dayan told a student forum here last night that if the United States applied sufficient pressure to the Arab states they would agree to start peace negotiations with Israel. “The key to war in the Middle East is in the hands of the Soviet Union and the key to a political settlement is in the hands of the United States,” he said.
Gen. Dayan said that the Arab states have regained the strength they possessed before last June’s Six Day War and were theoretically capable of mounting a two front offensive against Israel. But numbers alone do not make for operative strength, he said and the Arabs know they are too weak to wage another war and will not start one unless they have the support of a great power. He said the expansion of Soviet strength and influence in the Middle East in the past year had long been planned by the Kremlin and was not brought about by the Arab-Israeli war.
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