ABSTRACT
Arab delegates, including the Palestinians, used to spurn our attempts to speak to them. Now it would appear that they have regained confidence in themselves, for they make no secret of their desire to talk to us.’ These are the words of Naphtalie Feder, National Secretary of the ‘Zionist Socialist’ Mapam party of Israel, in an interview during the World Peace council meeting in Prague early in 1975 with the French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur. According to the interview, it was Feder who was reluctant to talk with the PLO respresentative at the meeting. ‘What could he add to what I have already heard Yasser Arafat say on the rostrum of the United Nations? Egypt and Syria want to regain the territories they lost in 1967. That is a clear and definite aim. But what does the PLO want? Its declared objective is the destruction of the state of Israel. Can this be a basis for negotiation?’ The Palestinian question still represents the most intricate problem in the Middle East crisis.
