Issues and Answers

I'm a born optimist. I only said that nations shouldn't get nervous and lose the capacity to think calmly when there is a certain crisis in negotiations. Ups and downs are always part and an integral part of negotiations. I could have quoted to you treaties already reached after years. Some of them you know yourself. And here, we negotiate, let me say for the last 14 months, was no splendid period. I believe we should overcome the difficulties, but anyhow it should be made clear, I don't adopt this theory of now or never. I will never adopt it. If there is a crisis, let us try, let us make an intellectual effort to overcome it. If we didn't this week, then maybe next week, next month. And, therefore, I couldn't say I'm not concerned. I would have liked to have signed this treaty in November, as we suggested. I am. I love peace, I hate war. And my people want peace. Do you imagine, Mr. Reynolds, what are the sacrifices we already made for the sake of peace with Egypt? We are prepared to give up the whole Sinai Peninsula. Two great air bases which we built with our own toil of great strategic importance, mainly after the events in Iran and the six countries which the Soviet Union took over by proxy in the last three years or so – Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Southern Yemen and, actually, also Cambodia. Where is the free world going? We built those great bases, it was going to be used also in the service of the free world. Now, last, but not least, with the greatest pain in my heart, we also decided to move our brave pioneers, who built their homes in a piece of desert, perhaps 2% of the whole area of the Sinai Peninsula, for the last 12 years, all for the sake of peace. No nation ever made such sacrifices, and, may I also say, no previous government ever did so. And, therefore, we proved that we give sacrifices for peace, not with words from mouths but with deeds. But it must be a real peace treaty. It cannot be a sham. We are not going to sign a sham document.