President Carter’s special Ambassador to the Middle East, Robert Strauss, declared to Congress today that the U.S. should not attempt to impose itself in the Israeli-Egyptian talks to speed autonomy plans for the West Bank and Gaza Strip, even though not a single decision has been achieved in four months of discussions.
Appearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s subcommittee on the Middle East in the wake of Moshe Dayan’s resignation as Foreign Minister of Israel and the Israeli Supreme Court’s decision affecting Jewish settlements on the West Bank, Strauss said, in effect, in the course of the two-hour hearing that the U.S. must take “a hands off position and let Israeli affairs take their own course.”
WARNS AGAINST PUSHING TOO HARD
“The worst mistake we could make is to be short-sighted and get this nation involved” in the internal matters of Israel, Strauss told subcommittee chairman Lee Hamilton (D. Ind.). Hamilton had expressed dissatisfaction with the results of the Israeli-Egyptian talks to date.
Warning against attempts to “push too hard when an ally of ours is undergoing political change, Strauss said “there will be debate in the next 30, 60, 90 days ### the settlements and Dayan. That’s a healthy debate. I don’t know where it is going to come out over there. I don’t know if it will speed up the process. But it will help in the long run,” he said.
Referring to the court’s decision as a “classic example” of democracy at work, Strauss advised, “rather than have us force ourselves, we should let the country (Israel) do it.” Dayan’s resignation, he added, is a “loss” to the Israeli government “indeed the world loses–but it provides for political debate.”
Rep. Paul Findley (R. Ill.), a leading proponent of U.S. recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organization without preconditions, opposed “letting the dust settle over the Dayan resignation” and waiting for months because the U.S. Presidential primaries are advancing. “You are advising caution,” he told Strauss, when the Israeli situation calls for “daring and imagination.”
Strauss replied, “I’m cautious about too much daring. I don’t want to jump out of windows. It would be great domestic politics for President Carter to kick the hell out of somebody, but in the end he won’t be very further ahead in the peace process.”
In a prepared statement to the subcommittee, Strauss described the two-day U.S.-Egyptian-Israeli talks that start in London Thursday as “not a major occasion” and said “no policy decisions or dramatic developments should be expected” since “we will deal mostly with the minutiae of technical issues” and “plans for the future.” When Hamilton asked if his impression that the current talks have “low priority” is correct, Strauss replied, “Your impression is inaccurate.”
With May, 1980 the target date for the establishment of the autonomy machinery on the West Bank and Gaza Strip under the Israeli-Egyptian treaty, Strauss testified that if “only half” of the necessary arrangements are completed by that time, the talks can be considered successful because of the complexity of the issues and the “vast, vast differences” between Egypt and Israel. He cited as an example the fact that some Palestinian Arabs want dual citizenship, that is, he said, to live in the country where they are and vote on West Bank and Gaza issues.
While saying that “not a single iota of agreement” has been reached between Israel and Egypt an autonomy, Strauss emphasized that “We are going through a posturing stage” and “that does not mean we don’t see the light.” He noted that Egyptian Prime Minister Mustapha Khalil had told him of a change in his own mind from “skepticism to moderate confidence” in success of the talks. “That’s a good sign,” Strauss observed.
He said, however, that should the discussions not bring about significant progress in the next few months, the U.S. would propose its own recommendations before the May I deadline.
THE ISSUE OF OIL
Asked by Rep. Stephen Solarz (D. NY) about the suggestion in Republican Presidential aspirant John Connally’s Mideast plan linking Israel’s return to its 1967 borders with supply and price arrangements with the oil-producing Arab states, Strauss said “The rejectionist states want the oil question hanging as a cloud over the world, particularly as it relates to the Middle East,”
But, he observed, it was his own experience that “folks that have oil tend to sell it. Arab states will sell it at the best price in their own interests, wherever takes place. The price is going up, up and up no matter what we do” in the Arab-Israeli situation, he said.
Strauss emphasized that the Saudi Arabians have not linked oil and the Palestinian issue in their talks with him. But he said he did not know what they may be saying to others. Saudi officials have been quoted here as supporting the Connally plan and demanding that the U.S. move toward negotiations with the PLO.
When Solarz asked if the Israeli-Egyptian treaty would survive should neither the Palestinians nor the Jordanians enter the autonomy negotiations, Strauss replied, “The treaty will probably survive but not meet our objective, a comprehensive peace.” He predicted that if the results of the talks give “sufficient self-determination” to the Palestinians, they will participate. He added that it is in Jordan’s “self-interest to participate ultimately.” He said the chances for this are “likely, not just possible.
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.
