DOMESTIC POLITICS
AND
FOREIGN
POLICY
IN ISRAEL
243
the capacity to initiate and to manoeuvre in the diplomatic arena. In fairness, itshould be pointed out that initially a much more accommodating and generousattitude lay behind Israel's public pronouncements. On June 19, 1967 theEshkol Cabinet reached a dramatic decision which was communicated in greatsecrecy to the State Department for transmission to Arab governments,indicating Israel's willingness to sign peace treaties with Egypt and Syria basedon the former international boundaries, but subject to the demilitarisation ofthe evacuated areas and a special agreement for Sharm-el-Sheikh. But inAugust the Cabinet changed its mind and annulled the de~ision,~ossibly as areaction against the Arab rebuff and insistence on unconditional evacuationwhich was followed by the famous 'three nos' pronounced at the Khartoumsummit conference: no peace, no recognition, and no negotiation with IsraeL4Thereafter, the Cabinet had no agreed position on the terms of a peacesettlement. Moshe Dayan, who was Defence Minister at the time and one ofthe leading opponents of Israel taking the initiative in opening a peace dialogue,frankly admitted in October 1967 that the reason for the government'sreluctance to state its position on peace proposals was that it had no policy inthis regard.Lacking an agreed initiating policy of its own, Israel found itself in theposition of having to react to the initiatives of her Arab adversaries and of theinternational community. Since these ideas were somewhat indiscriminatelyperceived as prejudicial to her interests, her reactions ranged from coolness tovehement hostility. The most impo;tant initiative, representing the broadestinternational consensus on the subject, was the Security Council's resolution
242
of November 1967, which called for an Israeli withdrawal 'fromterritories occupied in the recent conflict', and a recognition of the right of allthe parties to live in peace within secure and recognised boundaries. Thesecond point met Israel's principal demand, yet her acceptance of theresolution was so unenthusiastic, so hedged with qualifications and so slow to
-
come, that even among her friends some doubt developed as to the sincerity ofher repeated assurances that all the territories were negotiable.6 And thesesuspicions were inevitably reinforced by the formal annexation of EastJerusalem and by the cool reception of the United Nations mediator, DrGunnar Jarring.When, in the spring of 1969, the Four Powers began informal negotiationswith a view to elaborating proposals for an ArabIsraeli settlement, the
3. Eban, op. cit., pp. 435-36, and Yitzhak Rabin, Tile Rabin Memoirs (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson,1977), pp. 105-106.4. The British Broadcasting Corporation, Summary ofWorld Broadcasts, the Middle East, Sept.
4,
1967,MEl2559lAl2. On the Khartoum conference and its implications for the Arab position, see Malcolm
H.
Kerr,The Arab Cold War (London: Oxford University Press, 1971),
pp.
137-40, and
A.
I.
Dawisha, E~yptn tileArab World(London: Macmillan, 1976), pp. 52-53.5. Haaretz, Oct. 11, 1967.
6.
For a survey of the controversy surrounding resolution
242
and Israel's clarification of her position seeBernard Reich, Quest for Peace: United States-Israel Relations and the Arab-Israeli Conflict (New Brunswick:Transaction Books, 1977), pp. 131-33.
Leave a Comment