Shultz Assails Intransigence of Israel and Arabs : Calls on Both Sides to Compromise in Settlement of West Bank, Gaza Status

Secretary of State George P. Shultz, denouncing Israelis and Palestinians alike for intransigence, said Friday that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is too dangerous to continue much longer but that neither side can impose a settlement without compromising with the other.

In a speech to the staunchly pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Shultz ridiculed solutions proposed by right-wing Israeli politicians and by the Palestine Liberation Organization.

“The status of the West Bank and Gaza cannot be determined by unilateral acts of either side but only through the process of negotiations,” he said.

‘Territory for Peace’

Adopting a code phrase that will resonate in Israel’s bitterly contested national election, Shultz said a comprehensive settlement “will require the exchange of territory for peace.” That phrase is central to the platform of Foreign Minister Shimon Peres’ centrist Labor Alignment but is anathema to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s rightist Likud Bloc.

Shultz dismissed PLO leader Yasser Arafat’s suggestion, put forth in a speech this week to the European Parliament, that the Palestinians are ready to accept a 1947 U.N. partition plan that would have divided what was then British-ruled Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.

Israel accepted the partition plan in 1947, but the Arab parties rejected it, touching off what is known in Israel as the War of Independence. When the conflict ended, Israel was in control of substantially more territory than the U.N. plan would have allocated to it.

Israel later seized the West Bank and Gaza in the Six-Day War of 1967.

“The territorial issue needs to be addressed realistically,” Shultz said. “Israel will never negotiate from or return to the lines of (1947) partition. But it must be prepared to withdraw--as (U.N.) Resolution 242 says--’from territories occupied in the recent (1967) conflict.’ ”

Shultz made no changes in his eight-month-old peace initiative, which involved a preliminary peace conference, although Administration officials concede that the plan is all but dead because none of the parties to the dispute have accepted it. But he said it is time for the Israelis and the Arabs to realize that the United States cannot solve the problem for them.

“It is not acceptable to shift the focus from what the Palestinians or Israelis need to do to advance the peace process to what the United States should do,” he said.

Blames Both Sides

Shultz left little doubt that he blames both sides for the stalemate.

He did not question Israel’s refusal to negotiate with the PLO, but he scoffed at Israeli officials who contend that there are no Palestinians ready to enter into a dialogue with Israel.

Israel, he said, “cannot claim there is no one to talk to while suppressing political expression and arresting or deporting those who speak out--even those who speak in moderate terms.”

Turning to the Palestinians, Shultz said that no party “can wave the flag of justice in one hand and brandish the weapons of terrorism in the other.”

Shultz dismissed various options advanced by Israeli and Palestinian factions. For instance, he said a “declaration of independent Palestinian statehood or government in exile” would not advance the cause of peace. Some PLO factions have suggested such a plan as a way of asserting Palestinian statehood while implicitly acknowledging Israel’s right to exist.

At the same time, Shultz said, the United States would “oppose vigorously” any attempt by Israel to change West Bank and Gaza demographics by deporting Palestinian residents of the territories. This plan, designed to increase the proportion of Israelis there, is winning increasing support from the right wing of the Israeli political spectrum.

And in a slap at former Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon and others who have suggested that Jordan is the Palestinian homeland, Shultz said that Jordan “is not a Palestinian state.”

“The status quo between Arabs and Israelis does not work,” Shultz said. “It is not viable. It is dangerous. . . . (But) peace cannot be achieved through the creation of an independent Palestinian state, or through permanent Israeli control or annexation of the West Bank and Gaza.”