Israel Ambassador Abba Eban resumed this weekend discussions on the Middle East situation with senior officials of the State Department, it was learned here today. The effect of the coming summit meeting has been extensively discussed between the State Department and the Israeli Embassy in recent weeks, including lengthy conversations with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles.
While the exchange of views continues and has not yet fully crystallized, the following points have emerged so far in the exchange between the two governments since July 14:
1. The United States has strongly affirmed its support for the integrity and independence of Israel, which it regards as equal to Lebanon in terms of American commitments. Israel representatives are urging that this policy be given clearer and more concrete expression.
2. A list of items of new defensive equipment is now under consideration. Some of these are unlikely to cause much difficulty as they belong to categories already authorized in the recent past. It is too early to predict the outcome of the request for heavier equipment, which is the main source of Israel’s concern. Ambassador Eban has invited Shimon Peress, director general of the Israel Defense Ministry, to come for consultations on these matters
3. There is still much obscurity about the scope and character of the projected summit meeting of the Security Council. The United States has told Israel that it favors her participation if matters affecting Israel arise. But the published statements of President Eisenhower and Secretary Dulles indicate a desire to limit the conference to the specific matters which led to its convening, namely, the Soviet charges against the Western intervention in Lebanon and Jordan and the American charges of recent “indirect aggression” in the Middle East.
Israel has not been a central element in either of those two problems. Israel circles, however, doubt whether the discussion will in fact be confined to matters not affecting Israel, and consider it probable that Israel will in the end have to exercise her rights under the UN Charter to be represented.
Israel representatives have been given to understand that there is no foundation to newspaper reports that the United States is proposing an arms embargo for all or part of the Middle East. There is a Soviet proposal for an embargo on the whole Near and Middle East including Turkey and Iran, which the United States rejects.
Israel is understood to believe that a Security Council conference such as that proposed will, at most, be able to agree on certain broad principles, and will not be a substitute for direct negotiations on outstanding disputes. The principles which in the Israel view should be endorsed, comprise the integrity and independence of states, including Israel; guarantees against changes of existing borders by force; settlement of disputes by direct negotiations; and cessation of hostile acts, blockades, and inflammatory propaganda.
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