The U.S. government, which had been intensely critical, publicly and privately, over Israel’s policy of establishing settlements in the occupied territories, refrained today from discussing the Israeli Cabinet’s position not to take new decisions regarding that policy.
Presidential News Secretary Jody Powell said the settlements will be among the subjects President Carter and Israeli Premier Menachem Begin will discuss when Begin visits Washington March 13-16. The leaders will meet March 14 and 15, Powell said, to review “the progress that has been made” in the Israeli-Egyptian negotiations and how to proceed towards a “comprehensive peace in the Middle East.”
At the State Department, chief spokesman Hodding Carter said, “We have said what our position is on the settlements” and that he was “not in a position to judge” what the Cabinet decision yesterday “may or may not mean.”
The U.S. refusal to comment publicly came in the wake of renewed attacks by Egypt on the settlements. Foreign Minister Mohammed Kaamal described the Israeli Cabinet’s decision as a challenge to the U.S. and cited the off-repeated position by Carter and his chief aides that they regard the settlements as “illegal” and an “obstacle to peace.” Meanwhile, there was no immediate comment on a report from Damascus that Syria’s Chief of Staff has gone to Moscow to arrange new arms deals with the Soviet Union.
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