Weizman Says Proposed U.S. Sale of Aircraft to Arabs May Affect Israel’s Concept of Sinai Accord Wit

Defense Minister Ezer Weizman has warned that the Carter Administration’s proposed sale of combat aircraft to Saudi Arabia and Egypt will cause Israel to reassess its concept of a Sinai agreement with Egypt.

Speaking on a television interview Friday night, Weizman, who goes to Washington next month, said the worst aspect of the U.S. proposal was not the threat to Israel’s security but the fact that the Administration has lumped aircraft sales to Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia into a single package. He said the Administration apparently ignored the fact that Israel was promised a number of planes under its 1974-75 agreements with the U.S. at the time of the first and second Sinai interim accords.

SERIOUS QUESTION OF TIMING

According to Weizman, the political aspects of the deal are more serious than the military because of the timing. The Americans announced their plans at the very moment when Israel was in the midst of tough negotiations, he said. “The American move will affect some of our thinking, at least in the military committee, as to the way we see the Sinai agreement and has given us other second thoughts which may of may not be helpful to the negotiations,” he said.

Weizman said Israel must now “weigh” how the American move will affect the components of a possible peace pact with Egypt “on the wings of a plane–I hope it will not be on a tank tomorrow.” He said General Headquarters and other defense experts were studying all aspects of the new situation.

ANGER OVER CARTER’S REMARK ABOUT SAUDI ARABIA

Israel’s anger and consternation over the Carter Administration’s arms package was further aggravated by President Carter’s remark last Friday at a press conference in Cranston, Maine that Saudi Arabia “has never had any active aggression against Israel.”

Circles here said the President was apparently unaware that a Saudi unit of brigade strength took part in the fighting on the Golan Heights during the Yom Kippur War, participated in Israeli-Syrian skirmishes after the war and did not pull out until 1976. They also claimed that the Saudis stationed troops in Jordan in 1967 and, in 1973, turned over to Egypt 38 Mirage jets they had acquired from France.

(Carter, during his press conference, expressed optimism that Congress would “go along” with his Administration’s proposal to “sell a limited number” of planes to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel; thought “it’s very good for nations to turn to us for their security needs, instead of having to turn to the Soviet Union as they have in the past”; and denied that the timing of the plane sale to Egypt was a message to Israel to become more flexible in the current negotiations.)