Begin Calls on Israelis to Have ‘strong Nerves, Very Strong Nerves’

Premier Menachem Begin advised “all Israelis” last night “to have strong nerves, very strong nerves,” as the slow process of negotiations with Egypt proceeds. But he said he personally believed that eventually peace would be achieved. Speaking on a television interview during which he announced Egypt’s request for the withdrawal of the Israeli military mission, Begin repeated his unqualified rejection of President Anwar Sadat’s proposals which he claimed were “tantamount to the destruction of Israel.”

Begin said the Egyptian leader was demanding “total withdrawal” by Israel from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He stressed the security implications of such a move but did not mention his oft-repeated claim that the territories belong to Israel because of their Biblical associations.

According to Begin, acceptance of Sadat’s terms would bring every home in Israel and every Israeli plane in the skies within range of modern Soviet artillery and anti-aircraft missiles. “God forbid that we accept those terms,” Begin said.

BELIEVES SADAT IS READY FOR PEACE

However, he said he believed in general terms that Sadat was ready for peace. But he warned that even if Sadat himself does not intend to attack “a shrunken and whittled down Israel, his successors might and for that reason Israel must stand firm against Sadat and against those greater than Sadat.” The latter was seen as a call to resist pressure from the U.S. Begin repeated his charge that the opposition Labor Alignment was duping the public by suggesting the possibility of territorial compromise. He said the Egyptians flatly rejected the idea at the foreign ministers meeting in England last week and on previous occasions. Labor Party leaders and others have said that on less formal occasions senior Egyptian personages, including Sadat, have clearly indicated that they would be ready to contemplate a strategic presence of the Israeli army on the West Bank for security reasons after a peace treaty is signed.

Begin charged that King Hussein of Jordan was even more hardline than Sadat. He said Hussein told U.S. Ambassador-at-Large Alfred L. Atherton in Amman this week that he would accept only “minor border rectifications.”

Though pressed by reporters, Begin refused to elaborate on Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan’s statement to the Knesset Monday that the government would be prepared to discuss the sovereignty issue on the West Bank after five years of “self-rule” and that it would also be prepared to discuss a territorial compromise if one was proposed by the other side. Asked if this meant the government was prepared to concede to foreign sovereignty at least in some part of the West Bank, Begin repeated that the full Cabinet had endorsed Dayan’s statement and he would not “add or subtract” anything.

URGES AID FOR LEBANESE CHRISTIANS

Switching from Hebrew to English, the Premier called on “all free nations” to come to the aid of the Christians in Lebanon who face “massacre, annihilation” at the hands of the Soviet-equipped Syrian army. He said that France, as the traditional patron of the Maronite Christian community in Lebanon, had a particular responsibility in that regard.

But Defense Minister Ezer Weizman expressed a different view of the situation in Lebanon. Press reports today quoted him as saying that the Christian rightwingers had in fact provoked the Syrian army shelling of their strongholds in Beirut by sniping at Syrian soldiers. According to the Jerusalem Post, Weizman told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee that the Syrians were “not happy with developments and would have pulled their troops out (of Lebanon) if they had a face-saving way of doing it.”