Escalating Arab Attacks on Israelis May Be Aimed at Wrecking U.S. Peace Effort

A major escalation of Palestinian violence directed against Israeli targets in the past few days has left Western and Arab officials concerned that a new and coordinated campaign may have begun with the aim of wrecking the Middle East peace process recently revived by Secretary of State George P. Shultz.

Monday’s Arab guerrilla raid on an Israeli bus in the Negev Desert was only the latest in a series of incidents that appear to mark a departure in the Palestinian uprising in the occupied territories, these officials said.

Since the start of the uprising in December, the Palestinians have confined their violence largely to throwing stones and crude gasoline bombs and to burning tires to block streets and harass Israeli army patrols.

Cautioned Against Guns

The Palestine Liberation Organization, which claims to be providing direction for the uprising from abroad, has repeatedly cautioned Arab demonstrators against using firearms.

Afif Safief, the PLO representative in Amsterdam, was quoted Sunday as saying that PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat had given specific orders against the use of guns against Israelis.

“Somewhere, someone seems to have decided not to confine the intifada (uprising) to stones and bottles,” a Western diplomat here said.

Among the incidents causing concern:

-- The guerrillas who attacked the bus in the Negev were armed with automatic rifles, and their target appeared to be employees of Israel’s top-secret nuclear research facility.

-- Earlier Monday, in the West Bank village of Idna, a Palestinian protester hurled a hand grenade at an Israeli army patrol. One soldier was slightly injured.

Bomb Defused

-- Last week in Jerusalem, while Shultz was in the city, a car bomb was discovered near the hotel where he was staying. The bomb was defused without incident.

-- On Saturday, Soviet-made Katyusha rockets fired from southern Lebanon landed in northern Israel, wounding five Israelis. Israeli army sources were quoted as saying the rockets were fired by Palestinians in southern Lebanon.

Arab and Western officials said the fact that a major escalation of violence has occurred in the last three days, after 12 weeks of relative restraint, is evidence of coordination by an as-yet-unknown party.

But the primary goal, they said, appears to be the sabotaging of Shultz’s efforts to arrange Middle East peace talks.

Shultz returned to Washington last week after presenting Israel,

Egypt, Syria and Jordan with a plan calling for the convening of an international peace conference in April, to be followed by talks between Israel and a Jordanian-Palestinian delegation aimed at a three-year interim settlement. Talks on the final status of Israel’s occupied territories would begin in December.

Shultz described his plan to the Israelis on Friday, when he delivered a letter laying out the specifics of his proposal. (Text on Page 9.)

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak described the Shultz initiative as encouraging and constructive. Syria issued a statement of cautious support for the plan. Jordan indicated Monday that it welcomes the plan with reservations.

According to officials here, the effort to derail the Shultz initiative may stem primarily from Arafat rivals who feel that the Palestinian uprising has succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations and should be allowed to run its course. There are potential Arafat rivals inside as well as outside the mainstream PLO.

Discrediting of Arafat

Western officials here said it seems likely that the rise in the level of violence was planned to discredit Arafat’s leadership of the PLO at a time when he seems to be on the verge of becoming more deeply involved in the peace process.

Arafat’s deputy in the PLO, Khalil Wazir, also known as Abu Jihad, was due to arrive Monday in Amman for talks with Jordanian officials on the possibility of coordinating moves in the peace process. The Jordanian minister of information, Hani Khasawneh, told a news conference that it was possible that Arafat himself may visit the country soon to resume his dialogue with Jordan, which was suspended in 1986 by King Hussein.

“Arafat’s enemies know he was attracted by the Shultz initiative,” one diplomat said. “If he comes to Amman, the situation in the occupied territories will get worse rather than better.”

Arab officials and Western diplomats said that it was still not clear which group might be behind the recent campaign of violence.

But they agree that Syria’s relatively upbeat appraisal of the Shultz initiative, made public Saturday, appears to rule out Damascus as the source of the sabotage effort.

Among those regarded as likely to be behind the escalation are the following:

-- Abul Abbas, whose guerrilla followers hijacked the Italian cruise liner Achille Lauro in 1985 and virtually wrecked any effort to get peace talks started by killing an elderly American Jewish passenger. Jordanian security forces have reportedly headed off several attempts by Abul Abbas’ followers to infiltrate the West Bank from their base in Iraq to carry out terrorist attacks.

-- George Habash of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who may feel squeezed out of the resistance by Arafat and by his hosts in Syria.

-- The group known as Islamic Jihad, or Islamic Holy War, which has played a major role in the uprising and may now be seeking to escalate the violence on both sides in an effort to derail the peace initiative. This group is also said to be seeking revenge for the assassination in Cyprus two weeks ago of three PLO officials who reportedly had links with Islamic Jihad. The three men, killed in a car bomb in Limassol, were said to have played a role in an attack on Israeli soldiers at Jerusalem’s Western Wall 18 months ago.