PLO Warns of Armed Conflict if Shamir Wins
A PLO leader was quoted today as saying Palestinians will take up arms instead of stones if Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir wins the November elections.
Hani Hhassan, political adviser to Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat, confirmed to the Al Ittihad newspaper that the Palestinian National Council will meet soon to declare an independent state.
“We will be able then to know the election results and this will enable the (council) to determine the style of confrontation,” he told the newspaper in an interview in Cairo.
“If Shamir won, then we will be prepared to deal with him in a bloody way . . . bullets for bullets and violence for violence.”
He said such a confrontation will be limited to political means if the left-wing Labor Alignment of Foreign Minister Shimon Peres wins.
Palestinians and Arabs view Shamir’s right-wing Likud Bloc as more hard-line than Peres’ Labor party.
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