Begin tries to allay fears

Press, 24 May 1977, Page 8

Begin tries to allay fears

NZPA-Reuter Tel Aviv The Right-wing Likud Party leader, Mr Menachem Begin, sought yesterday to allay American fears that his hard-line views have increased the danger of a new Middle East war. Mr Begin, whose party swept to victory in the General Election last week, interrupted a brief holiday for a working lunch with the new American Ambassador (Mr Samuel Lewis). Only hours after the meeting Mr Begin was rushed to hospital with a possible heart attack. No details of the two-hour meeting were announced, but a Likud Party source said that Mr Begin “explained some of his views to revise the distorted picture of the mass media that his election meant war.” Mr Begin made a slashing counter-attack on foreign mass media which he said had pictured him as “an ogre, anxious to start war.” Mr Ezer Weizmann, the Likud election campaign manager who is expected to be named as Defence Minister in the new Cabinet, has told the Arab services of Israel television that no West Bank Arabs would be deprived of their land and no confiscations would take place. “Jewish settlement will continue in Judea and Samaria (the occupied West Bank) but one thing should be clear and beyond doubt: no Arab will be deprived of his land and no land will be confiscated or expropriated. If we

can buy land wherever a settlement is required, we shall buy it — let there be no doubt or worry about that,” he said. President Sadat, of Egypt, said in an interview published in Cairo yesterday that there was no basic difference between former Israeli Prime Ministers and Mr Begin. The semi-official “AlAhram” newspaper said, that Mr Sadat referred to the victory of Mr Begin’s party in the Israeli General Election last week as “mere superficial changes.” Mr Sadat was quoted as saying he was optimistic about a Middle East peace settlement. The Egyptian Foreign Minister (Mr Ismail Fahmi) told the newspaper: “The oil weapon would be used again if Israel persists in its occupation of Arab territories, or the rights of the Palestinian people were not restored.”