The growing volume of pronouncements by President Carter and senior administration officials, outlining in detail their ideas on how to resolve the Arab-Israel conflict, the new arms sale policy excluding Israel from its hitherto inclusion in a special category, discussion of a Palestinian homeland and the need for Israel to indemnify the Palestinian refugees, the ban on the sale of Israeli made Kfir air-craft to Ecuador, all this alarmed the out-going Rabin government. At the conclusion of one of its final sessions, the cabinet issued a communique taking the Carter administration to task and spelling out the basis for a settlement with the Arabs. Text:
At the weekly cabinet session:
The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs reviewed the recent pronouncements by the U.S. President and other accredited U.S. administration factors on subjects connected with resolution of the Arab-Israel conflict.
Referring to the U.S. President's mention of various U.N. resolutions in connection with different subjects in this sphere, the Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister detailed Israel's stand - as made clear to the U.S. administration vis-a-vis the U.N. resolutions relating to the Middle East negotiations.
Extant are two Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, constituting the basis for progress towards a settlement. General Assembly resolutions are solely in the nature of recommendations - and in a situation of an automatic majority in the Assembly for any anti-Israel draft resolution, the Assembly's resolutions can obviously not serve as a basis for a settlement.
The two agreements with Egypt and the Disengagement-of-Forces Agreement with Syria were attained on the basis of Security Council Resolution 338 - this also being stated explicitly in the agreements themselves. It was further stated in the agreements that future negotiations would be conducted on the basis of the two aforementioned resolutions.
The U.S. government has always supported the principles embodied in Resolutions 242 and 338 - as was made clear recently as well by accredited American spokesmen.
The Foreign Minister emphasized that it was inconceivable to change these principles in a unilateral manner. Any unilateral change would mean the undermining of the achievements attained to date, and endangering pursuance of the way to attaining a stable and durable peace in the Middle East.
The Foreign Minister also drew attention to the statement by President Carter, who said that the U.S. had no plan for resolving the conflict and that the unilateral raising of the Rogers Plan - without prior consultation with the parties - had not contributed to promotion of the settlement. The government should appreciate the U.S. President's statement, that the content of the agreements must be determined between the parties to the conflict and that the U.S. does not intend to lend a hand to an enforced solution.
At the same time, the Foreign Minister reiterated his concern that combination of the various sporadic statements voiced by different levels in the U.S. administration, was liable to be linked into something in the nature of a comprehensive plan - which was in contradiction to the declared American commitment on the issue. The Foreign Minister expressed his concern lest the Arab side harden its positions in the wake of various American statements that could lend themselves to an interpretation approximating the Arab version.
The Prime Minister, Mr. Yitzhak Rabin, reported that Israel's Ambassador to the U.S., Mr. Simcha Dinitz, had conveyed to the U.S. administration the Israel government's concern in the light of certain and surprising American pronouncements, that were tantamount to declaration of defined positions on subjects that were in dispute between Israel and the Arab states.
By their combination, these pronouncements - which Israel disputed - prior to commencement of negotiations between the parties, created an image of the existence of a defined American plan for resolving the region's problems. This was liable to disrupt modification of the Arab states' positions and to encumber the prospects of bridging between the stands of the Arab states and those of Israel.