Peres Offer of West Bank Deal Charged

Leaders of a right-wing Israeli political party charged Thursday that Prime Minister Shimon Peres has offered Jordan’s King Hussein a secret agreement under which the two nations would share power on the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Peres dismissed the charge as “nonsense based on pure invention.” Nonetheless, there are signs that Israel and Jordan, whether by secret agreement or otherwise, were taking halting steps toward greater cooperation on the West Bank.

Energy Minister Moshe Shahal confirmed that the government is weighing the political and economic ramifications of a proposal under which Jordan would supply electricity to the West Bank.

Significant Shift Seen

This plan, put forward by Anwar Nusseibeh, a former Jordanian government minister who is chairman of the East Jerusalem Electric Corp., would mark a significant shift if approved by Israeli officials, who have tried to either limit the company’s operations or take it over.

In another development, informed Palestinian sources said that Jordan has approved the appointment of a prominent Palestinian businessman to replace an Israeli military officer as mayor of Nablus, the West Bank’s largest city. Israel had approved the change, but Jordan, which ruled over the area from 1948 until Israel captured it in the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, had used its influence to block it.

The Palestinian mayor-designate was identified as Zafer Masri. Israeli television reported Thursday night that his family and another prominent Nablus family are to meet Saturday to pick 12 members of a new City Council.

There have been various proposals here over the last decade that Jordanian-Israeli rule over the occupied territories could help bring about at least an interim solution to the Mideast conflict. The late Israeli Cabinet minister Moshe Dayan was an advocate of this so-called condominium approach.

Rightists Oppose Plan

Renewed diplomatic activity in recent months has seen a revival of the idea, even though it is opposed by Israel’s political right, which claims permanent sovereignty over lands it prefers to call by the Biblical names of Judea and Samaria.

Yuval Neeman, leader of the ultra-nationalist Tehiya Party, said Thursday he has seen a copy of a power-sharing scheme proposed by Peres to King Hussein.

Israeli Trade Minister Ariel Sharon, a former defense minister, made a similar charge Wednesday in a meeting with his colleagues in the leadership of the rightist Likud Bloc, the newspaper Hadashot reported Thursday. Sharon demanded a clarification from Peres, whose leftist Labor Alignment is a partner with Likud in the national unity government.

Without naming Sharon, an angry Peres responded rhetorically in an Israeli army radio interview Thursday, saying, “What am I going to give him clarification on, his own lies?”

Peres aides suggested that political opponents trying to sabotage the prime minister’s efforts to move forward in the peace process have misrepresented one of many different working papers that have been prepared.

‘It Doesn’t Exist’

Even Yitzhak Shamir, the Likud Bloc leader who is foreign minister and alternate prime minister, said in a radio interview: “There may be working papers, but there’s nothing like an agreement. As far as we’re concerned, it doesn’t exist.”

Among the provisions of the alleged West Bank power-sharing agreement reported by Neeman and Sharon were the following:

--New Jewish settlements and the expansion of existing settlements would be banned.

--State lands and water supplies would be brought under joint Israeli-Jordanian control.

--Jordan would be responsible for policing Arab towns and villages, while Israeli police would patrol more than 100 Jewish settlements in the area.

--Israel would be responsible for defense and foreign policy.

--Jordan would administer Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, the site of two sacred Muslim shrines and revered by Jews as the spot where King Solomon’s temple once stood.