MIDDLE EAST PEACE PLAN Guerrillas Determined On Sabotage

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32335, 29 June 1970, Page 11

MIDDLE EAST PEACE PLAN Guerrillas Determined On Sabotage

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) AMMAN, June 28. Palestinian guerrilla leaders say that they are determined to sabotage any chances for a Middle East peace that may emerge from the new American initiative in the area, the Associated Press reported. “We are the joker in the pack. Without our consent they can do nothing, and we will never agree to a peaceful settlement,” said one influential guerrilla official.

“If the Arab countries now think they can gang up and make peace over our head they are mistaken,” he said.

“All we have to do is assert our power in one country— Jordan immediately comes to mind—and the rest will lose their resolve and start backsliding.” The sources scoffed at hopes that the Palestinians might compromise on their demand for the total liberation of Palestine and accept something short of that. They also discounted reports that the American plan, announced by tbe United States Secretary of State (Mr William Rogers), on Thursday takes into acount Palestinian rights. I ‘All Of Palestine’ ' “If they can give us back Palestine—all of Palestine—then we shall be satisfied. Otherwise, wou can tell Mr Rogers no dice,” was the way one guerrilla official put it. Palestinian intransigence j has been one of the chief; stumbling blocks to peace be-i tween Arab and Israel since! the search began after the 1967 war. The militancy of the Palestinians has undermined the authority of King Hussein in his own kingdom and has forced other Arab leaders to maintain a tough line on the issue of peace with Israel. None of the Arab countries directly involved—Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and to a lesser extent Iraq and Lebanon —has specifically and categorically rejected the United States plan. Guerrillas’ Power Western diplomatic sources, however, acknowledge that the new-found power of the guerrillas might well scuttle the plan. Earlier this month, bloody , fighting in Amman forced ’ King Hussein into making important political concessions to the guerrillas. The sources admitted that the guerrillas could check him again if he were about to reach a settlement with Israel. The sources said that the United States initiative did take into account Palestinian rights, but did not call for the guerrillas to be brought .

in as a direct party in any negotiations that might result. ISraeli leaders were not yet willing or able to .talk to the guerrillas as a legitimate party to the dispute, they said.

The guerrillas say that if they are called into such talks, they may send a small delegation to present their wellpublicised demands and reject all other proposals. “But the Israelis are never going to talk to us until we force them to,” said a guerrilla source. “It may take years until the Israelis are convinced

that Zionism must go and that the only answer to the problem is a democratic, nonracial state in Palestine. “We are determined to fight until they are convinced.”

N.Z.P.A.-Reuter reported from Jerusalem that the Israeli Cabinet was meeting today to decide its attitude to America’s peace initiative. The Prime Minister (Mrs Golda Meir) and her ministers were to hear a detailed report on the plan from Israel’s Ambassador to Washington— Mr Yitzhak Rabin—who has flown back to Jerusalem.

The meeting came after renewed heavy fighting in the Middle East. Yesterday Israeli planes were again airborne to raid Jordan and Suez Canal areas. Israel has made no official comment on the peace proposals offered by Mr Rogers. The official Israeli reaction is not likely to be made known until tomorrow, when Mrs Meir makes a policy statement to the Knesset (Parliament). ‘An Old One’ The Israeli Minister of Posts (Mr Elimelech Rimalt) told a Jerusalem audience that the Rogers plan was essentially an old one. “It makes no mention of direct peace negotiations or the determination of secure and agreed borders,” he said. Wherever the United States attitude to the Middle East conflict grew closer to the Russian approach, it was always the United States that increasingly adopted the Soviet line, Mr Rimalt said. Whenever the Russians hardened their stand. America made concessions. The new American proposals promised neither peace nor an end to enmity, but merely offered an interruption in the fighting, with every chance that the war would be renewed, Mr Rimalt said. Mr Rabin said on his arrival from Washington on Friday that there had been no change in the basic United States attitude to Israel which supported the stand that there should be no withdrawal from the present lines in the absence of peace between Israel and the Arabs.