Israel wants peace with the Arabs, because "we are fed up with wars and we seek a situation where we will no longer be enslaved by the race for armaments," Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy said here Wednesday.
He spoke to reporters at Adath Israel synagogue, where he was about to address a community assembly. His visit to Canada, promised last year to the Canadian Jewish Congress, had been delayed by the Persian Gulf War.
Levy denied Israel’s Cabinet is split over peace policy.
He has been attacked by right-wing members for agreeing to certain proposals of U.S. Secretary of State James Baker.
But Levy described the Israeli Cabinet as a body united in the goal of peace.
Speaking in Hebrew through an interpreter, Levy said that Israel is extending "the warm hand of peace." He said it is time the Arabs "put a stop to this taboo on talking to Israel."
Asked if he would consider trading territory for peace, Levy replied that no negotiator would agree to preconditions. This would be "capitulation, not negotiation," he said.
Levy will be meeting Friday in Jerusalem with Soviet Foreign Minister Alexander Bessmertnykh, the highest-level Soviet official ever to visit the Jewish state.
There has been speculation that the occasion will be used to announce the re-establishment of full diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Israel, which Moscow broke in 1967.
Asked how far he would press the Soviets to re-establish those ties, Levy said, "We have no intention of pushing for recognition."
Israel "simply wants normality, not anomaly," Levy said, observing that "Russia maintains full diplomatic relations with states with which it has been at war."
"At this point, there is a consulate (of Israel) in Moscow, and the Israeli flag is flying in the city. But we are not standing at the door begging to be admitted.
"The level of recognition should be raised, and we are leaving it to the Soviets," he said.
Levy also met here with the family of Marnie Kimmelman, the teen-ager who was killed last year in a terrorist attack on an Israeli beach.
Earlier on Wednesday, Levy met in Ottawa with Canada’s new external affairs minister, Barbara McDougall, who recently replaced Joe Clark in that office. It is believed that the personnel change in that position will move Canadian sympathies more in Israel’s direction than they have been in the past.
After meeting with Bessmertnykh, Levy will go to Brussels for talks Sunday with the 12 European Community foreign ministers.
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.
