Mr. Netanyahu, who participated in the Arens meetings with Foreign Minister Shevardnadze in Paris in January and in Cairo in February, felt that they were on the right track towards a development of a dialogue and they were held in a very good atmosphere. He though that as a result ties with the Soviet Union were strengthening. He rejected any Israeli contact with the PLO and with Yasser Arafat. Excerpts:
Q: Do you have any special impressions from your meeting with the Russians?
A: ( ... )This was the second meeting with Shevardnadze that I participated in. The previous meeting was with Foreign Minister Arens in Paris. 1, all of us, can definitely chalk up to our credit the development of a dialogue. I don't want to say agreement because it is clear that we are divided on central issues. But this wasn't a meeting between the deaf, you didn't have a situation in which one person recited one side's [position], and another, the other's. Rather, there was very close contact: discussions, frank and open talks in a very good atmosphere. And I believe that the important thing here is that despite the disagreements, the ties are strengthening. This is exactly the principle we wish to promote on the diplomatic level, not only with the Soviet Union but with all countries. Diplomatic relations are not conditional upon seeing eye to eye.
Q: Would you be prepared to meet with Arafat?
A: I am not a partner to the appraisals vis-a-vis the PLO. For example, yesterday I heard Abu Iyad on Israel Television, by means of a videocassette he sent here, in which he said: "We mean real peace, not a stage or a tactic, not a war of stages to destroy Israel." In the foreign ministry, I, like my colleagues, receive various cables containing statements made by Abu Iyad in Arab capitals, in PLO newspapers, and in their party organs. A week ago, he said the complete opposite. Therefore, if we are searching for the way to peace - and we are - we are looking for it at the level of real partners who are not engaged in double tactics or strategies but those same Arab elements -Arab statesmen - who really mean peace, direct and unmediated peace.
Q: Would you meet with Hussein?
A: As you know, we are ready to meet with any Arab element willing to talk in these terms.
Q: Would it be wrong to say that some day you, or other members of your party, will meet with Arafat or one of his successors?
A: I don't anticipate such a possibility. But I must tell you that the hope fostered by the Israeli media - or at least part of it, or some people in Israel - that we are on the verge of negotiating, of sitting down with the PLO, actually pulls out the carpet from under the feet of those who might have been willing to dissociate themselves from Arafat. If we want to find other partners for a dialogue - Arab partners, Palestinian-Arab partners - I don't believe that any such will emerge so long as the evaluation among certain circles in Israel, and worldwide, is that in any event it is the PLO which will take possession of, enter, the area from which Israel withdraws. I don't know of any Palestinians who under those circumstances would be prepared to defy the PLO and to present themselves as independent elements. Therefore, I would say that instead of acting to bring nearer the negotiations between us and those Arab elements with whom we would like to hold a dialogue, this absurd expectation of negotiations with the PLO only further distances the peace and doesn't bring it any closer.