UN General Assembly
1974

228. But here, too, the same grave question presents itself: why did that come so late, and why only after bloodshed? After all, partial arrangements could have been reached without war, and before the war, both in the Suez Canal area and on the Golan Heights. In 1971 Israel responded affirmatively to the American proposal for proximity talks for a partial agreement with Egypt, and there was no reason why, as time went on, we should not have responded in the same way to proposals for similar talks with the other neighboring States. It was the other side that rejected the proposal and thus killed that constructive initiative for no good reason. In the event we did finally have face-to-face talks, that is to say, something more than proximity talks, at the first session of the Geneva Conference, at the negotiations between Israel and Egypt at kilometer 101 on the CairoSuez road, and on the occasion of the signature of the agreement with Syria in Geneva. Why then should this have been done at the cost of tens of thousands of casualties on both sides?