President Charles de Gaulle’s bitter attack on Israel at his Paris press conference Monday, was denounced by a special Cabinet committee this morning as “a distortion of history, and a grave injury to the Jewish people and the State of Israel.” The Parliament’s committee on foreign affairs and security, and the entire Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, met in closed session at 8 o’clock last night and adjourned well after midnight after hearing and discussing Foreign Minister Abba Eban’s report on the recent United Nations Security Council deliberations and the Middle East resolution adopted by the Council.
The committee reiterated the Government’s policy, endorsed by the Knesset (Parliament) on November 11, that Israel will give up no occupied Arab territory except under the terms of a peace treaty arrived at by direct negotiations with the Arabs and that, until then, the present cease-fire lines will be maintained and respected.
There was speculation today that Prime Minister Eshkol or another Cabinet minister would make a detailed reply to President de Gaulle at an early opportunity, and rebut the allegations he made on Israel’s aims in the Middle East and the ideological bases for the founding of the Jewish State. An occasion for the reply may be Mr. Eshkol’s traditional press luncheon on Friday to mark the anniversary of the United Nations 1947 Palestine partition decision, which paved the way for the establishment of the State of Israel.
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