No Palestinian State, Shamir Declares

Israel refuses to be dragged into a struggle between Jordan and the Palestine Liberation Organization over the occupied West Bank and will use “an iron fist” to crush any attempt to create an independent Palestinian state there, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir declared here Wednesday.

In an uncompromising speech before a special session of the Knesset, or Parliament, Shamir pledged that Israel will retain its “security and legal control” over the disputed land, and he branded international calls for creation of a Palestinian state “hypocritical, phony and meaningless.”

The ultraconservative premier was interrupted several times during a 20-minute address by Arab and left-wing deputies, even as he quoted biblical passages dealing with what he termed the God-given right of “the children of Israel” to the land.

The special parliamentary session was called to debate the impact of King Hussein’s announcement that Jordan is cutting legal and administrative ties to the West Bank, effectively renouncing a longstanding Hashemite claim to the territory. Jordan annexed the Delaware-sized bulge of land in 1950 and ruled there until Israel captured it in the 1967 Middle East War.

Hussein said the Palestinians are entitled to set up their own state in the occupied territories and promised that if they declare their independence, he will immediately recognize their government.

The king’s landmark announcement appears to upend many longstanding assumptions about possible solutions to the Palestinian problem, and it has at least temporarily derailed a U.S. peace initiative in the Middle East that depended on Hussein representing the Palestinians at an international conference.

But Shamir’s message to Parliament is that Israel intends to stand fast.

“There will be only two states between the (Mediterranean) sea and the desert,” Shamir vowed Wednesday, “a Jewish state with its capital in Jerusalem and an Arab state with its capital east of the Jordan (river). . . . A national consensus exists to the effect that a second Arab state will not be established along our eastern border.”

Even though Israel has maintained many elements of Jordanian law in the occupied territories since 1967, the prime minister denied that Hussein’s disengagement has created any legal vacuum. Israel has “the right and the obligation” to retain control over the disputed land, he said.

Shamir characterized the king’s actions as “directed first and foremost against the PLO,” which has had strained relations with Jordan. “Jordan-PLO relations do not concern us,” Shamir added. Whether Hussein’s action was meant to be strategic or tactical, he said, “Israel will not play this game.”

The Israeli leader said the 1.5 million residents of the occupied territories will be the ones to suffer from Hussein’s actions. Although Israel sympathizes with them, he added, they are misguided in their apparent support for the PLO.

Regarding proposals under consideration by Palestinians here and abroad to unilaterally declare their independence and create a government in exile, Shamir promised that any such attempts “will run into an iron fist that will not leave the least remnant.”

The Israeli leader appeared at the Knesset fresh from what Israel Radio characterized as “one of the ugliest exchanges ever seen” in a meeting of the so-called Inner Cabinet of 10 senior ministers.

Shamir, leader of the rightist Likud Bloc, and his rival, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, head of the centrist Labor Alignment, were described as “facing each other, red-faced, just inches apart, waving their hands as they spoke.”

The two big parties are in the final weeks of an uneasy coalition government that resulted from deadlocked elections in 1984. New elections are scheduled for Nov. 1.