Shamir and Peres reject statement

Press, 9 December 1988, Page 8

Shamir and Peres reject statement

NZPA-Reuter Jerusalem

The rival Israeli leaders, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Shamir, rejected Yasser Arafat’s acceptance of Israel as a bid to destroy the Jewish State and a publicity stunt.

“They (the Palestine Liberation Organisation) can ' declare anything when their intention and ambition and philosophy — the destruction of the State of Israel — remains unchanged,” the Prime Minister, Mr Shamir, told Israel television.

He said the joint statement issued by Mr Arafat, chairman of the P.L.0., and five American Jewish peace campaigners in Stockholm did not indicate any change in the Palestine Liberation Organisation. “I don’t see any, I don’t think I will ever see any meaningful change because they formed to destroy the State of Israel. The day they will agree this is not possible and not desirable they will have to break up,” Mr Shamir added.

But the Foreign Minister, Mr Peres, urged the P.L.O. to make a clear-cut declaration recognising

Israel’s right to exist and denouncing terrorism.

He dismissed as an exercise in public relations the joint statement, which aimed to clarify resolutions passed last month by the Palestine National Council (P.N.C.), the parliament-in-exile.

Unlike Mr Shamir, who ruled out any possibility of talks with the P.L.0., Mr Peres urged the organisation to meet his demands.

“We need a clear-cut approach and a clear-cut declaration that there is an end to violence. We need the acceptance of (U.N. resolution) 242 ... with its ambiguity on several of the outstanding issues and we need a clear-cut recognition of the right of Israel to live in peace,” Mr Peres said.

Mr Arafat said the condemnation of terrorism did not include anti-Israeli violence in the occupied territories. At least 329 Palestinians and 11 Israelis have died in the two-year revolt. Soldiers shot and wounded six Palestinians yesterday in the Gaza Strip and an Israeli soldier was slightly wounded while riding in a military bus.