Unrest Is ‘War,’ Shamir Declares : Ready to Make Peace, He Says on Arrival, but Not on Shultz’s Terms

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, describing West Bank and Gaza Strip disturbances as “a war against the existence of the State of Israel,” said Monday that he is ready to make peace with his Arab neighbors, but not on the terms proposed by Secretary of State George P. Shultz.

“We are always open to new and constructive proposals,” Shamir said as he arrived in Washington for talks with President Reagan, Shultz and congressional leaders. But he said he could not even consider the Shultz package unless it was changed substantially.

Avi Pazner, the prime minister’s chief spokesman, added, “Mr. Shamir is interested in continuing the peace process, of course, on terms that are acceptable to him.”

Shamir said any peace talks should be based on the 1978 Camp David agreement between Israel and Egypt.

Issue of Camp David

A senior State Department official said the Camp David accords could not be stretched to fit the present situation because Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinians--the parties with which Israel has still not made peace--were not represented in the negotiations mediated by then-President Jimmy Carter at the U.S. presidential retreat in the western Maryland mountains.

“We look at the Camp David accords as a work of genius at the time and for the parties it was designed for,” the official said.

As for Shamir’s demand for changes in the Shultz plan, the official said: “We’re going to talk about our proposal. . . . We won’t permit any aspect of it to be eroded or compromised. . . . There would be a danger of the whole proposal unraveling” if there were substantial changes.

Shultz’s plan envisions a 3-year plan of limited self-rule for Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with negotiations for an overall settlement to open by December. He also is pressuring Israel to give up captured territory in exchange for Arab recognition. Shamir contends, among other things, that after returning the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, Israel can yield no more land without a threat to its security.

Shamir, who arrived in the United States at dawn after an all-night flight, met briefly with Shultz and Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci on Monday, but most substantive talks are scheduled for today and Wednesday.

At their first meeting, Shultz assured the Israeli prime minister that from the American standpoint, peace has “two fundamental building blocks--a strong Israel and an unshakable U.S.-Israeli relationship.”

Shamir plunged at once into the other major objective of his U.S. trip, an effort to soften American criticism of Israel’s often bloody suppression of more than three months of Palestinian protests against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. At least 89 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds of others injured in clashes with Israeli security forces during the turmoil.

“I know you are disturbed by what you see on television,” Shamir said in a speech prepared for a United Jewish Appeal young leadership rally. “Make no mistake about it. What you see is not demonstrations. . . . It is war. And it is not a war for Judea, Samaria (Israel’s terms for the West Bank) and Gaza. It is not a war for a Palestinian state in those areas. It is a war against Israelis, against the existence of the State of Israel.

“They are taking a leaf from the (Iranian) Ayatollah (Ruhollah) Khomeini’s war manual, they are inciting women and teen-agers to fight a war to which democratic countries are most vulnerable: a war of violence in the streets.”

Also, Shamir demonstrated impatience with outsiders--including both the U.S. government and the American Jewish community--who try to push Israel into making concessions to its Arab adversaries.

“We believe that only those who must bear the consequences of agreements on their flesh, those who must shed their blood to defend our country, can decide what risks to take in the pursuit of peace,” he said.

Earlier, Shamir told a delegation of American Jewish leaders who met his plane at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York that he could neither accept nor reject Shultz’s peace initiative because the Israeli Cabinet was split over the issue. Shamir’s Likud Bloc opposes the plan, while the Labor Alignment of Foreign Minister Shimon Peres favors it.

“I decided at this stage not to decide anything final on Shultz’s proposal because our people is divided,” Shamir said. “I do not believe that we can make peace only with the approval of half the population. We have to reach an internal consensus.

“It is obvious that most of the people of Israel want peace,” he said. “But the question is what should be the price for peace and what will Israel be after we make peace.”

Although Jewish community sources said last week that the delegation had hoped to soften Shamir’s objections to the Shultz plan, an Israeli official said that no questions were raised after the prime minister’s brief remarks.

Shamir may have defused the delegation’s objections when he stopped short of outright rejection of the Shultz proposal.

Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine, which describes itself as a “Jewish critique of politics, culture and society,” said Shamir was trying to surround himself only with Jewish-Americans who either support his hawkish views or agree not to voice their criticism in public.

“He knows that very large segments of the Jewish community are alienated from him, but he is avoiding talking to any of them,” Lerner said. “Shamir is trying to use the American Jewish community as a fig leaf for his policies in Israel.”

ISRAEL -- FOREIGN RELATIONS -- ARAB NATIONS