Arafat Meets 5 U.S. Jewish Leaders in Sweden; Israel Irate

PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat met today with five American Jewish leaders--including one born in a Nazi death camp--and with Sweden’s foreign minister at the start of a visit strongly opposed by Israel.

Foreign Minister Sten Sture Andersson greeted Arafat and 12 members of the Palestine Liberation Organization at Stockholm Arlanda Airport, then accompanied him in a helicopter to the Haga Palace guest house for the talks, which were arranged by the Swedish government.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Hallqvist said Arafat met with the five American Jews and Andersson at the official residence outside Stockholm under the protection of about 300 Swedish police officers and Arafat’s bodyguards.

Hallqvist identified the Jews as Rita Hauser, chairwoman of the International Center for Peace in the Middle East; members Menachem Rosensaft, Drora Kass and Stanley Sheinbaum, and Princeton University professor Abe Udovich.

Rosensaft, who was born in Nazi Germany’s Bergen-Belsen death camp, is founding chairman of the International Network of Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, according to Rositta Erlich Kenigsberg, president of the Miami-based organization.

The Foreign Ministry spokesman said the PLO chief would lay a wreath at the grave of assassinated Prime Minister Olof Palme, hold further talks with Andersson and meet with Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson, who cut short a visit to France to return to Sweden today.

When Arafat last visited Sweden unofficially, in 1983, he met with Palme, causing a diplomatic strain between Sweden and Israel.

Hallqvist said he could provide no further details of today’s meeting or the current two-day official visit, which again drew strong criticism from Israel and major American Jewish groups.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said that it expressed “stupefication” and “astonishment” to the Swedish Embassy over the visit and that the impression “will be very damaging” if Arafat meets with Swedish officials.

Carlsson said in Paris on Monday that the visit should not be seen as a provocation to Israel and that Sweden, traditionally a strong supporter of Israel, is not taking the PLO’s side in the Middle East conflict.

Sweden is helping the two parties to meet each other, he said.

Another Foreign Ministry spokesman, Bo Heineback, said Andersson had arranged the meeting as part of Sweden’s effort to move the peace process forward in the Middle East.

Kenneth Jacobson, director of Middle East affairs for the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, said today that the meeting did not represent a change in the views of mainstream American Jewish organizations.