Shultz Backs Peres in Israeli Dispute on Talks : Calls Jordan ‘Sincere,’ Hails ‘Real Opportunity’ for International Conference on Mideast Peace

Secretary of State George P. Shultz injected the United States into a bitter Israeli political debate Sunday by calling for renewed consideration of an international peace conference to set the stage for negotiations between Jordan and Israel.

Although Shultz sought to soften the impact of his remarks on Israeli domestic politics by insisting that Washington would not move on the conference idea until the Israeli government reached full agreement, the secretary of state clearly lined up with Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in his contest with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

‘Opportunity . . . for Progress’

“We believe that Jordan is sincere and that a real opportunity has been presented for progress,” Shultz said.

“We are not interested in disrupting Israeli politics in the process,” he said. “To the contrary, we will proceed only with the support of the government of Israel.

“We have our own views, however, and we will state them in the same spirit with which we have worked with Israel for years,” he added. “We believe the present circumstances clearly call for a fair and thorough effort to develop an acceptable plan.

“If no acceptable understanding emerges, so be it--we will try again another way,” he said. “But let us try.”

Shultz said the United States envisions an international conference only as a forum for direct talks between Israel and Jordan. He said the United States would not support a conference that would allow neutrals or other parties to impose a settlement on either Amman or Jerusalem.

Although Shultz described the conference proposal with more passion than American spokesmen have employed in the past, his position was not very different in substance from the stance the U.S. government has taken for months.

However, it was the first full discussion of the proposal by a U.S. official since Peres made it the centerpiece of his effort to force new elections in Israel.

Shortly before Shultz spoke to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, he conferred at his home with Peres. It was their second private meeting in as many days.

Peres’ centrist Labor Alignment and Shamir’s right-wing Likud Bloc have shared power in a “national unity” government since the inconclusive 1984 general election.

Peres last week sought to win Cabinet approval for the international conference proposal. But he gave up in the face of a tie vote, with his party supporting the plan and Shamir’s opposing it.

Shamir is violently opposed to the conference idea both because it probably would bring the Soviet Union into the Middle East peace process and because he is unwilling to consider giving up the West Bank of the Jordan River or any of the rest of the territory that Israel seized during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

In his own speech earlier Sunday to the committee, which lobbies the U.S. government on behalf of Israel, Peres indicated that his party was ready to yield part of the West Bank to Jordan as part of a peace settlement. He said that Israel-Jordan negotiations could freeze the Palestine Liberation Organization out of Middle Eastern diplomacy.

No Place for PLO

Shultz said that only nations that recognize Israel diplomatically should be invited to the conference. Neither the Soviet Union nor China now has diplomatic ties with Israel.

Nevertheless, Shultz said Moscow could be a constructive partner in such a conference if it chose to be. But he said there was no place at the table for the PLO.

“Is the PLO qualified (to attend the conference)?” Shultz asked. “Hell, no.”

Peres, in his speech, said that the only way to bring peace to the Middle East is to “find a solution to the Palestinian problem.” His speech was aimed at enlisting the committee behind his campaign to force new elections in Israel.

Earlier in the day, Peres said that he and Jordan’s King Hussein agree that if the Soviet Union attends the proposed international conference, it would not be allowed to impose a settlement. And, he said, Moscow may not even be asked to participate unless it makes a gesture of friendship to Israel by restoring diplomatic relations or sharply increasing the number of Soviet Jews allowed to emigrate to Israel.

Peres implicitly confirmed published reports that he and Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, also a Labor Party member, met secretly last month in London with Jordan’s King Hussein.

Referring to the reports, Peres said, “If this is true, there is another truth--the Jordanians didn’t ask and I didn’t make any promises of concessions of any sort.”

Nevertheless, Peres left little doubt that his party was prepared to give back to Jordan part of the territory on the West Bank of the Jordan River that Israel seized during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

He said that, in his view, Jordanian sovereignty over part of the territory was preferable to either creation of a Palestinian state dominated by the PLO or continued Israeli occupation.

He said that if negotiations can begin soon, Hussein will impose conditions on PLO participation that the PLO leadership would surely reject. In that case, he said, Hussein was prepared to cut the PLO out of the talks.

‘We Prefer the King’

If forced to choose between Hussein and PLO leader Yasser Arafat, Peres said, “We prefer the king.”

Although Shamir does not speak of Hussein with the sort of affection that Peres seemed to display, the prime minister has made it clear that he, too, prefers Jordan to the PLO. However, Shamir is adamantly opposed to giving up any part of the West Bank, which he calls by the Biblical names Judea and Samaria.

But Peres said that Israel must consider the demographics of the occupied territories. If the 1.3 million Palestinian residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip were added to the 760,000 Arabs who live within Israel’s pre-1967 borders, it could create a formidable Arab voting bloc that would challenge Israel’s 3.55 million Jewish population. The situation is compounded by a higher Arab birthrate.

Peres said that Israel must “keep a clear majority of Jewish people to assure the nature of the Jewish state.” He left little doubt that the only way to do that was to remove from Israel territories with heavy Arab populations. However, he said, no Israeli faction would consider surrendering the Arab sector of Jerusalem.

“We know that to solve the conflict with Jordan, we have to find a solution to the Palestinian problem,” Peres said.

Direct Talks

Hussein has been calling for an international peace conference for years as a way to a comprehensive settlement. And while Jordan previously has said that such a conference would have substantive powers, Peres said Hussein now agrees that it would serve only as a starting point for direct Israel-Jordan talks. He said that Hussein believes he needs such a conference to give “legitimacy” to negotiations with Israel.

In a related development, Israeli Communications Minister Amnon Rubinstein, head of the liberal Shinui party, announced in Jerusalem on Sunday that he would resign from the Cabinet in an effort to try to force new elections. The departure of Rubinstein will not affect the coalition government’s parliamentary majority because his party controls only two votes.