December 17, 1975
U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger meets in Paris with Saddun Hammadi, the Iraqi minister of foreign affairs. Kissinger says the United States will not negotiate Israel’s existence but might accept reducing “its size to historical proportions,” a position consistent with former President Richard Nixon’s attitude as voiced in private.
More than a year earlier in Damascus, Nixon told Syrian President Hafez al-Assad that Washington was committed to seeing an “Israeli withdrawal from all the occupied territories.” Later, President Gerald Ford promised Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin “positive treatment” of Israel’s desire to retain the Golan Heights. Ford’s promise was not ironclad, however, nor did the White House entertain any secret accords to allow Israel to retain the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Kissinger’s statement to Hammadi that the U.S. envisions Israel as becoming small and nonthreatening like Lebanon may have been wishful U.S. foreign policy or Kissinger’s personal view or ingratiating diplomacy or some combination of the three. Regardless, Kissinger’s comments are what Hammadi wants to hear.
The transcript of the conversation can be viewed at http://www.meforum.org/1032/henry-kissinger-to-iraq-in-1975-we-can-reduce.
