Sharon Reportedly Calls for Israeli Strikes on PLO Command Posts in Jordan

Ariel Sharon, a senior minister in Israel’s national unity government and architect of its war in Lebanon, called Monday for Israeli strikes against Palestine Liberation Organization command posts in Jordan, according to separate reports by Israeli radio and television.

The former defense minister’s remarks came in a meeting of the rightist Likud bloc caucus in the Israeli Parliament and followed a Cabinet meeting in which the government voted to beef up its internal security forces to combat terrorism.

The Cabinet also ordered a review of proposals to mandate the death penalty for terrorist slayings and to reinstate other forms of harsh punishment in the wake of a recent upsurge in attacks on Israeli Jews. The latest victims--two schoolteachers allegedly killed by three West Bank Arab youths--were buried Sunday.

Anti-Arab Rioting

Those slayings triggered anti-Arab rioting in northern Israel last Friday, and in a clear indication of the continuing ethnic tension here, the Cabinet on Monday called for “all citizens of the country to obey the law and to refrain from harming innocent persons.”

Meanwhile, security sources said Monday night that the bodies of two young Arab men missing since Friday were found in a bombed-out Peugeot automobile near Al Askar refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank close to Nablus.

The two were identified as Rashid Omar Daraghmeh, 24, a student at An Najah University in Nablus, and his cousin, Ahmed Daraghmeh, 26. Both were from Tubas, an Arab village of 5,300 people eight miles northeast of Nablus.

The security sources said they are investigating three possibilities: that the pair died at the hands of Jews bent on revenge; that they were murdered by other Arabs for unknown reasons, or that they were would-be terrorists who died when a bomb they were preparing went off accidentally.

No Immunity for PLO

At the meeting of the Likud bloc’s parliamentary leaders, Sharon said the PLO should not enjoy immunity from Israeli attack just because it has moved its headquarters from Lebanon to Jordan, according to the radio and television reports.

Israel must tell the United States that there will be no negotiations with Jordan as long as King Hussein allows the PLO to maintain bases on his territory, Sharon reportedly added.

The Jordanian monarch has proposed that the United States meet with a Jordanian-Palestinian delegation as a first step toward new Middle East peace negotiations.

According to Israeli defense sources, several hundred PLO political and administrative functionaries moved their headquarters from Beirut to Jordan after the Israeli army forced the PLO out of Lebanon during a 1982 invasion dubbed “Operation Peace for Galilee.”

While the PLO is not believed to have any independent military bases in Jordan, the Israeli sources say up to 2,000 fighters are in the country as part of the Palestine Liberation Army, a force under the tight control of the regular Jordanian army.

Charges by Rabin

Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin charged during a radio interview last week that the rapprochement between Hussein and PLO leader Yasser Arafat has contributed to increased terrorist activity in Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“We know for a fact that operational orders are sent from there,” Rabin said, adding that he was certain that this is being done without Hussein’s knowledge.

In his remarks to fellow Likud lawmakers, Sharon, now minister of industry and trade, also urged that the government forbid inhabitants of the occupied territories to go to Jordan for any negotiations with the United States.

He also said that about 600 Palestinians released into the occupied territories as part of a May prisoner exchange for three Israelis captured in Lebanon should be rearrested and deported. Incidents of stoning from roadside Palestinian refugee camps should be punished by the immediate destruction of the front row of camp housing, Sharon added.