Rabin: Don’t Dismiss Sadat’s Threats to Resume Warfare

Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s former Ambassador to the United States, warned last night that Israel must not lightly dismiss Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s threats to resume warfare “We should not assume there is nothing behind his threats.” Rabin said at a Labor Party meeting in Ashdod.

Referring to Sadat’s bellicose May Day speech to several thousand workers’ at the Nile Delta textile center of Mahalla Al Kubra, Rabin said the Egyptian leader’s intention apparently is to unfreeze the political situation in the Middle East But he is repeating the mistakes of his predecessor, the late Gamal Abdel Nasser, and Sadat, like Nasser, may become the victim of his own slogans, Rabin said.

Sadat hinted strongly in his speech that Egypt intends to use force to regain the territory it lost to Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. At the same time he urged Soviet leaders to beware of American talk of a Middle East peace settlement which he termed “a myth, deception and lie.” He denounced the U.S. position that an interim agreement between Egypt and Israel to reopen the Suez Canal was the best step toward an overall settlement and declared that Egypt would accept “no interim solution, no partial solution, no separate solution” short of the return of all of its territory.

A senior government official said today that Sadat’s speech betrayed Egypt’s increasing frustration and disappointment that six years after the Six-Day War it is no closer to regaining its lost territory. He said the speech also reflected the traditional hatred of Israel, intense bitterness toward the U.S. and fear that the Soviet Union and the U.S. might reach an understanding on the Middle East that would sell-out Egypt’s interests.

Observers here saw no clear indications of Sadat’s military intentions in his speech. Generally they discounted his belligerent rhetoric and said it was intended mainly to raise tensions so as to force the world to focus attention on the Middle East as an urgent problem. That intention apparently lies behind Egypt’s insistence on a full dress Security Council debate on the Middle East late this month or early in June, Israeli circles said. But they believe that as long as the Security Council is talking, Egypt is unlikely to start shooting.

Israeli officials, meanwhile, are in contact with Washington to make sure that the U.S. will block any attempt in the forthcoming Security Council session to alter Resolution 242. Israel also expects the U.S. to veto any attempts at sanctions or one-sided condemnation of Israel that might be made during the debate.