Unrest Proves Arab Problem Needs Solution, Peres Says

Two months of unprecedented unrest in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip has shattered Israeli illusions that the country can live with the status quo, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Tuesday in an interview.

Peres said it would be a “tragedy for everybody” if no genuine movement toward peace resulted from the upheaval. But he flatly dismissed, for the first time, speculation that he will press for early elections in order to break a government deadlock over how to proceed toward negotiations.

Peres said some people believe that a new American Mideast peace initiative may give impetus to the process, and he promised to support “anything which may move things ahead.”

However, he was clearly skeptical that the U.S. move could break the Israeli stalemate--and even more skeptical about what he described as Washington’s goal of opening negotiations by the end of the year on a permanent solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

‘Let’s Try’

“I shall behave as though it is realistic, and let’s try,” he said with a shrug.

Peres, who leads the centrist Labor Alignment in Israel’s coalition government, has been described as increasingly frustrated over the lack of political initiative to address the causes of the unrest.

Labor shares power with the rightist Likud Bloc of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, and the two political groups are at odds over the future of the occupied territories. Labor’s platform calls for territorial compromise to achieve peace; Likud has pledged never to relinquish Israeli control over the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Peres reportedly said at last Sunday’s regular Cabinet meeting that when historians open the record of government debates in the current crisis, “they won’t believe their eyes.” What they will find, he is said to have told his colleagues, is that the ministers spent all their time talking about the military aspects of the problem and none about the political.

Prove His Vision Right

In the interview, the foreign minister appeared philosophical about the situation, convinced that, ultimately, either the sweep of events or elections will prove his vision right.

“Until this started,” Peres said, “people said, ‘What is burning?’ Some people even thought that I’m a man in a hurry, that I have landed from the skies of theory to a healthy land with some disquieting messages. Today they understand, I think--most of them--that it’s serious.”

The army cannot provide an answer to disturbances on the West Bank, he said, and added:

“The army doesn’t claim it can. The minister of defense doesn’t claim he can. Now, we cannot only deal with the result of the problem, which may be stones (hurled by Arab protesters). We must deal with the roots of the problem, which is the conflict. And the political level cannot wash its hands. The politicians must make a decision. I think this message is coming more and more in the leadership of the parties. Where it will lead, I don’t know.”

However, he went on, “Who can seriously, really feel today in his heart that the status quo is the only answer to the Israeli problems?”

No Boon to Rightists

Peres dismissed analysts here who see the unrest in the territories as strengthening the rightist political trend in the country.

“I’m totally unimpressed by the present mood,” he said. “We live in a very strong, dynamic situation. . . . Nine months (the time remaining before national elections, which are scheduled for November) is a terribly long time, and whoever tries to draw conclusions today is very much ahead of time.”

He said he thinks time is on Labor’s side. In the past year Peres has been under pressure from within his party to break his coalition agreement with Shamir and try to force early elections. Until Tuesday, he had been careful to leave that possibility open. But in the interview, he said that barring an unlikely, ironclad agreement with Likud, Labor will not be able to control the timing of early elections.

It is an important point for his party, because traditionally many of its generally more affluent supporters travel abroad in the summer months. Since Israel has no provision for absentee balloting, this means that summer elections could cost Labor two or three critical seats in the Parliament.

“We are not going to endanger ourselves with maneuvers which may lead us to a very unfortunate (election) date,” Peres said.

In the meantime, he said, the new American peace initiative is seen by some as a possible way to keep the process alive.

U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz said Sunday that Washington is “in very active discussions with the key parties--with the Israelis, with the Jordanians, with the Egyptians and, in a lesser way, with the Palestinian leaders.”

Israeli officials described the initiative as involving new proposals for limited Palestinian autonomy in the occupied territories during a four-year transition period, plus the opening of negotiations for a comprehensive solution to the problem in as little as a year.

President Reagan’s former Middle East envoy, Philip C. Habib, met with Jordan’s King Hussein on the initiative over the weekend, and Peres said that despite what appeared to be a cool reception, the effort is still very much alive. He described Hussein’s reaction as careful but not negative.

The problem, Peres said, is that the U.S. proposal is still so loosely formulated that “everybody sees it in (his) own light; when the full light will be cast we shall see again we are facing the same problems.”

Peres said Jordan still needs an “international opening” if it is to enter real negotiations with Israel without preconditions. He said he is ready to agree to an international conference under United Nations auspices, but Shamir and his Likud Bloc are opposed.

Also, Peres said, the linkage between some interim arrangement for autonomy in the territories and an “understanding on the permanent solution” is a major stumbling block.

Failure to make progress, Peres warned, would lead to the rise of religious extremism among the Arabs. And that, he said, would be “a tragedy for the Arabs, not just for us.”