Replying to a motion by the Likud regarding conditions for negotiations with Egypt, Mr. Allon declared that Israel was interested in promoting negotiations with Egypt at her own initiative. He reviewed the talks he held in Washington in early December 1974 and spelled out the five basic considerations on which an Interim Agreement should be based. Israel is interested in negotiations and needs no outside spur to this end, he said. Text:
The recurrent question is whether, in the absence of the Arab countries' willingness, or ability, to make peace with Israel at once, it was in Israel's interest to try and advance Israel towards peace by phases. Not only is this discussion not a new one, it is also one that was already repeatedly determined by the Knesset: The plenary session has more than once taken note of the cabinet statements regarding the government's readiness to proceed in this way, based on interim agreements - as last formulated less than two months ago, on 5 November 1974.
I see nothing that would justify a change in our policy on this subject. My talks in Washington with heads of the American administration, some three weeks ago, were a direct result of this policy which, as already mentioned, was approved by the Knesset plenary. As I have already publicly stated, in the presence of Dr. Kissinger, my abovementioned talks were but preliminary clarifications intended to examine the actual possibility to enter significant negotiations on an interim agreement. We are still in this preliminary phase, and no-one can safely predict whether we shall indeed arrive at meaningful negotiations, let alone whether such negotiations - if and when they should be held, would indeed lead to the hoped-for agreement.
This is neither a plain nor an easy road, with no lack of calculated risks. But if the factual choice is between an interim agreement, with all the risks inherent in its temporary character - and a renewed freeze, with its far greater risks - the road of interim agreements towards peace is preferable, and this is indeed what we have preferred, out of five basic considerations:
A. That the agreement will be based on mutual concessions, and will represent an additional, significant step towards peace.
B. That, despite the withdrawal and re-deployment involved, the I.D.F. will continue to hold a firm, strategic expanse.
C. That the agreement will be accompanied by mutual and international safeguards based on stable, effective demilitarization - which will provide maximum protection against violation of the agreement, and will a priori eliminate the risk of a surprise attack.
D. That Israel will continue to hold areas and locations of Importance to Egypt, which will remain an incentive for Cairo to follow the road of negotiation towards peace.
E. That the sides will not, on expiry of the agreement, revert to hostilities, but to a state of controlled cease-fire, until the conclusion of negotiations on the next agreement.
That is to say: An interim agreement - if and when achieved - must be based on an Israeli withdrawal of considerably smaller extent than the withdrawal to which Israel would agree within the framework of a peace-treaty - against an Egyptian equivalent of considerably greater strategic and political significance than what Egypt was prepared to concede in the framework of the separation agreement.
This is obviously not the place to go into details regarding conditions and topographical maps - but I will say this: The basic principle, as far as Israel is concerned, is that the depth of the Israeli withdrawal must be in direct relation to the scope and significance of the Egyptian compensation, including the agreement's period of validity. Mr. Speaker.
Since the motion was proposed to the Knesset at the end of this week, until it came up for debate in the plenary today, new developments have taken place in our political world: The Egyptian Ministers of War and Foreign Affairs were urgently invited to Moscow, and the visit to the region of the General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, Mr. Leonid Brezhnev, was postponed without a new date being fixed.
One must assume that these events will be of not-negligible influence on the Middle Eastern political scene. But these matters are too close, we are still in the phase of studying and evaluating developments. At this juncture, it would therefore be premature on our part to lay down rules or publish announcements. I shall therefore limit myself to the following: Should the cancellations of Brezhnev's visit turn out to signify, inter alia, a serious readiness on the part of Egypt to enter significant negotiations with Israel regarding an interim agreement, in the spirit of the aforementioned principles. I welcome this readiness. Furthermore, should this turn out to be the case, Israel is interested in promoting such negotiations on her own initiative, and she does not need to be spurred and urged on from outside. On the contrary, such efforts regarding the pace or contents (of developments) might have the opposite effect.
To conclude: During the past two months, the Knesset has in plenary session conducted a series of political debates, which accompanied the important developments affecting our region, to mention the most recent among those: A political debate was held on 28 October, following the U.N. General Assembly's decision to invite the chairman of the terrorist organizations, a large-scale political debate was held on 5 November after the Prime Minister's statement following the Rabat conference. We also held a political debate on 26 November, following the infamous resolutions of the General Assembly on the Palestinian subject and, on a different note, the Soviet-U.S. conference in Vladivostok.
In view of all the aforesaid, I can see no point in holding another political debate in the Knesset plenary at this juncture. I have no objection to the matter being referred to the Knesset Defence and Foreign Affairs Committee to which such subjects are their daily bread. I therefore propose to pass the motion to the Defence and Foreign Affairs Committee.