Israel is ready to conclude peace with the neighboring Arab countries within 24 hours or less. “Mrs. Golda Meir, Israels Foreign Minister, declared today in a coast-to-coast television interview. She emphasized that so had “no doubt whatever that, given a peace treaty normal relations can exist between Egypt and Israel.”
Asked how peace negotiations can start “when Israel’s neighbors won’t even admit that Israel exists,” Mrs. Meir replied: “That is something to which the United Nations should not acquiesce. We are a member of the UN and so are the Arab states. It seems to me that the United Nations should demand that the Arab-States should negotiate peace with us.”
Asked about Israel’s stand regarding the Arab refugees she declare. “In the first place, we are prepared to plan the resettlement of the Arab refugees, in the second place, we have always said that within a peace settlement, we naturally would be prepared to pay for the property that was left behind them by the Arabs who fled from the country and are now among the refugees.”
The Israel Foreign Minister stated it was her position that the United-Nations Emergency Force should not only be stationed in the Sinai peninsula, but should remain there until a peace settlement has been achieved between Egypt and Israel. In any event, she declared, the United Nations must not allow the old status quo to develop again in such a way that Egyptian forces come back again before there is a peace settlement. The Sinai Peninsula, she maintained, is a natural buffer area between Israel and Egypt.
Asked about Israel’s plans to withdraw or not to withdraw its troops from the Gaza Strip, or from the two islands Israel occupies now guarding the Strait of Tiran, the waterway leading to Israel’s port of Elath the Foreign Minister said: “These are items within the entire pattern of withdrawal that we are discussing at present with the Secretary-General. Here, too, the main issue is What will happen if and when Israeli troops withdraw?”
“Let me take for example the Aqaba Strait,” she pointed out “Israeli troops are there now. But these islands were never populated. All they had on them was Egyptian gun positions. There were also Egyptian gun positions at the Southern-most tip of the Sinai Peninsula overlooking this strait. The guns were there for one purpose, an illegal purpose-the illegal purpose of blockading the passage of Israeli shipping. Is it conceivable that the United Nations should restore gun positions in order to restore a blockade that has now been eliminated?”
Israel agreed to withdraw its troops from the Sinai peninsula, Mrs. Meir said, to show that it complies with UN resolutions–even those with which Israel does not agree Additionally, she stated, “we went in there merely to clear the Sinai desert from the imminent danger to Israel-and as long as we drove the Egyptian army out, and took the tanks and guns that were there, we saw no reason why we should not withdraw and have the United Nations force come in.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
