Israel offers peace plan

Press, 16 May 1989, Page 11

Israel offers peace plan

NZPA-Reuter Jerusalem Israel’s national unity Cabinet, split over peace moves for four years, finally has a peace plan and a political answer to a Palestinian uprising that the Army has failed to crush with military might. “After many years of the national unity Government, there is a peace initiative that I believe will win wide support among the people of Israel,” the Defence Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, said yesterday.

He warned Palestinians that the Army would take harsher steps to crush their 17-month revolt if the plan were rejected. The initiative by the Prime Minister, Yitzhak Shamir, endorsed by the Government yesterday by a vote of 20 to six, calls for elections in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip to choose Palestinian delegates to talks with Israel on an interim solution.

After a period of Palestinian self-rule that cannot exceed three years, negotiations would begin on the final status of the occupied territories. The plan is modelled after the 1978 IsraeliEgyptian Camp David peace accords, unanimously rejected by the rest of the Arab world. It has strong United States back-

ing and seems to include a few Israeli concessions. Palestinians have denounced the elections plan as an attempt to bypass the Palestine Liberation Organisation and end the uprising while evading demands for a Palestinan State, but they have not totally ruled it out.

In a letter to the United States Consulate six leading Palestinians said the proposals were grossly deficient in that they were not part of a political process that lead directly to the establishment of an independent Palestinian State.

The draft of the peace plan says the elected Palestinians would be the “central Palestinian component, subject to agreement after three years, in the negotiations for the permanent solution,” apparently leaving open the possibility of P.L.O. participation. To win P.L.O. backing for the plan, Washington has proposed that it join the negotiations on the permanent status of the territories.

Israel has so far rejected the idea. It refuses to deal with the P.L.0., insisting it is a terrorist group determined to destroy the Jewish State. The draft says Israel will not conduct negotiations with the P.L.O.