The United States would like to force Israel to make concessions to the Arabs in order to obtain peace. Zalman Aranne, Israel minister without portfolio, charged today in the first Ministerial reaction to the policy statement of Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Henry A. Byroade on Israel and the Arab states.
In an address to the Dayton, Ohio, Council on World Affairs April 9, Secretary Byroade called on Israel to suit its actions in relation to the Arab states to its peaceful words. He also urged Israel to see itself as a Middle Eastern state, not a center for world Jewry and a state in which Jews have special rights and to which they owe special obligations. At the same time, he called upon the Arab states to recognize that the existence of Israel is an accomplished fact.
Speaking at a Mapai Party meeting at Rehovoth, Mr. Aranne called Secretary Byroade’s statement “serious” and asserted that at the present junction Israel-American relations are similar to those which existed between the Jewish community of Palestine and Britain prior to the issuance of the White Paper of 1936. Expressing the opinion that Secretary Byroade spoke as he did “upon direct orders” of the State Department, the Israeli Minister declared that Secretary Byroade’s words constituted a demand on Israel not to react to border incidents.
Mr. Aranne predicted that within two years Israel would be engaged in a political campaign “similar to and as difficult” as the one which preceded the United Nations partition decision of 1947. Mr. Aranne also postulated what he called “axioms” in the current situation. These he listed as:
1. The Jewish people is united and the State Department’s efforts to cause a breach between Israel and world Jewry will fail; Israel will not surrender its contacts with world Jewry; Israel will not agree to become a “Jewish ghetto” in a hostile Arab world.
2. Israel will not surrender territory nor abandon its capital, Jerusalem; Israel will not accept the return of the Arab refugees; Israel will oppose vigorously the arming of the Arab states.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman in Jerusalem today termed an “invention” and “absolutely unfounded” a Moscow newspaper report alleging that Israel had promised Britain military bases on its oil.
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