On 5 August 1981 President Sadat called on the United States to embark on negotiations with the P.L.O. Following are excerpts from an interview with the Prime Minister in which he reacted to the Egyptian leader's suggestion and discussed other current issues as well:
Q: Mr. Prime Minister, the government last night won the confidence of the Knesset. What is the political timetable of the government, and for you?
A: Regarding the negotiations on autonomy (for) the Arab residents of Judea and Samaria and Gaza, this matter will certainly be resolved only during my visit to Washington, which will begin on 8 September. By then I hope that at the end of August I will meet with President Sadat and we will also clarify - taking into account our holidays - when we will be able to renew the negotiations. But there is reason for supposing that the negotiations will be renewed sometime between September and October. And if there are negotiations, there is always a basis for hope that an agreement will be reached.
Q: Mr. Begin, the President of Egypt last night called on the U.S. to recognize - or to start a dialogue with the P.L.O. What is your reaction?
A: ... This is not a liberation organization. It is in the most brutal sense of the word a terrorist, killers' organization ... It gets a budget of a billion dollars a year from the countries with billions of petrodollars, it gets arms from the Soviet Union, from Bulgaria, from North Korea, from Syria, from Libya and lately from Saudi Arabia too - in really unlimited quantities. And of course it aims these arms against a civilian population ... (anyway) I understand that the President (Reagan) did not answer in the positive, and that the Secretary of State also in the negative. There is a commitment to Israel, it is absolutely clear, never to recognize the so-called P.L.O. until and unless they recognize Israel and accept 242 and 338. That didn't happen. Meantime ... There was a statement made a few days ago by Mr. Kaddoumi, the so called foreign minister of that organization, saying - clearly - under no circumstances shall we ever recognize Israel. And every Israeli should know that behind him there stands, as he put it, a guerilla and he is out to get him. And that was the official statement by one of the main leaders of that organization. Well, to us it was no news, but to the others it should be elementary. Of course, I cannot agree on this issue with my friend Anwar - he calls me my friend Menachem. So I should reciprocate. We are friends indeed, we trust each other, we discuss with each other matters with complete candor. When we disagree, we say so, when we agree, we declare so. And so it will be in the future. If I meet him in Alexandria, I will tell my friend Anwar: I disagree with you completely. If you try to bring into the negotiations that murderous organization - which by the by, tries to assassinate President Sadat time after time - and once we knew from a very serious source that such an attempt is going to be carried out: we didn't leave it a secret, as far as the proper authorities are concerned. And, therefore, negotiations regarding autonomy can be conducted in the near future only between the United States, Egypt and Israel. I do not deny the possibility, objectively, of including our Arab neighbors who are called Palestinians into the negotiations, but not ... under no circumstances whatsoever, the so-called P.L.O. ... this is simply out of the question, so leave the issue alone...
We are very happy that there is now a cessation of hostile activities and there is no bloodshed either on the Israeli side, on its northern border, or on the Lebanese side, on its southern border, and we hope that this situation will continue for a long time.
But of course one cannot know. They are liable at any time to make use of their weapons and shell us. We, of course, will then consider how to respond to this, and how to prevent it. There will be no unilateral attacks against Israel under any conditions. A number of times we held our fire when they shelled, after the cease-fire went into effect, but we did this on the assumption that with a cease-fire, an armistice, a halt to hostile acts, there is always someone who fires a bit more, and afterwards things calm down. And in fact, this happened and it did calm down.