Hermann Eilts, former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, said today he does not believe the autonomy talks currently underway between Israel, Egypt and the United States will be concluded by the May 26 target date. He predicted that a final settlement in the Mideast will take at least a few more years.
Addressing a symposium on American foreign policy in Southern Asia and the Mideast, held at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, sponsored by the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, Eilts said he supports the Carter Administration’s approach to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict. He said that this approach, which is based on the Camp David agreements, is the most sound option to solve the 32-year-old crisis.
He said, however, that the Carter Administration was mistaken by setting a target date for the autonomy negotiations, noting that “it is a mistake to set dates in the Mideast” conflict and that problems there should work themselves out without the imposition of time limits.
Eilts also said he seen no chance for solving the Mideast crisis by reconvening the Geneva peace conference or by changing United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, noting that both Israel and Egypt, for their own reasons, object to these approaches.
At one point in his speech the former Ambassador, who is presently Professor of international Relations at Boston University, said that up to now all American Administrations rejected suggestions to pressure Israel into concessions by cutting economic and military aid. But he said he does not exclude a partial cut in American aid to Israel in order to wrest concessions from the Jewish State.
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.
