Shamir Blasts U.S. for Talks With PLO : Israeli Leader Calls Move a ‘Serious Test’ of 2 Countries’ Ties

Breaking three days of silence following an event he now calls shocking, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir on Saturday sharply criticized Washington’s decision to talk with the Palestine Liberation Organization and cautioned that the move is straining the U.S.-Israeli alliance.

Shamir, whose hard-line policies have remained firm during the recent months of a Palestinian peace offensive, declared on radio: “We always said the United States and Israel are allies; there is an alliance between us, and it can happen that there are serious disagreements between allies.

“This week,” he continued, “something happened that puts that principle to a serious test. The United States decided to enter negotiations with Israel’s most extreme enemy. It is no wonder that this caused shock, and no wonder that we are all thinking and weighing what happened, why did it happen and what should be done.”

Called Unconscious Wish

Shamir described the American move as an unconscious wish to conform to widespread diplomatic support for the PLO.

“There is some atmosphere in the world, even a fashion--and fashions can be crazy sometimes--of sympathy for this terrorist body. The United States was swept up by this wave,” Shamir asserted.

His comments on the new U.S. policy sometimes assumed the tone of a lecture to a wayward and somewhat naive giant. “A superpower like the United States finds it very difficult to admit its mistakes,” Israel Radio quoted Shamir as saying. “Israel cannot afford to make even one mistake.”

Shamir repeated his resistance to talks with the PLO and said he would unveil his own peace initiative--after he succeeds in putting a coalition government in place, a process that has dragged on for more than six weeks.

“Once the government is formed, one of its first steps . . . will be initiatives that would become known in Israel and the world,” Shamir announced.

With a certainty that seems to border on longing, Israeli officials predict that the PLO will soon reveal itself to be capable only of carrying out terrorist attacks. The nation’s defense minister, Yitzhak Rabin, said that the U.S. approach to the PLO had encouraged the latest eruptions of violence in the occupied West Bank.

“We must tell the Americans they have in fact given legitimization to the uprising in the territories,” he said.

“What is the uprising in the territories in fact? Throwing a petrol bomb at a bus carrying civilians, killing a mother and her three children--that’s not terror?” Rabin asked, making reference to a deadly attack on a public bus in late October near the West Bank town of Jericho.

The death toll from violence on Friday in the West Bank city of Nablus rose to five Saturday when a gunshot victim, 20-year-old Mohammed Kawni, died in a hospital. He was wounded when Israeli soldiers fired on mourners at a funeral who had hurled rocks at patrolling soldiers. At least 20 people were injured in the clashes.

Rabin made no apologies for the high death count, the most for a single day since early October.

“I accept everything that was done. It was necessary,” Rabin said on television. “The flare-ups will be kept in check with an iron fist.”

Thirty more Palestinians were wounded Saturday as violence broke out in several towns and villages in the West Bank and in two refugee camps in the Gaza Strip. Merchants throughout the occupied territories called a three-day general strike to protest the Nablus shootings.

In Jerusalem, police fired rubber bullets and tear-gas canisters at protesting students, 10 of whom were arrested for throwing rocks.

Since the Reagan Administration made its decision to talk to the PLO, Israel’s response has been marked by disbelief, rejection and expressions of hurt. At the same time, some Israeli observers say that the crisis has exposed just how little Israel has to offer for the moment in combatting the PLO’s vigorous diplomatic maneuvering.

“That should teach us . . . that we cannot remain passive in the international scene and have events dictate our moves,” said Simcha Dimitz, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States.

At Odds Over Response

Leading Israeli politicians appear to be at odds over how to respond beyond the purely negative. Late last week, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres tried to revive his idea for elections among Palestinian Arabs to choose a negotiating delegation for peace talks. On Saturday, Moshe Arens, a leading candidate to succeed Peres as foreign minister, dismissed such calls and hinted that Israel may impose an “autonomy” on the 1.7 million Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that would leave the territory under Israeli control.

“I think it is a subject that will be discussed in detail,” Arens said.

Wrangling Over Government

Israel’s responses are complicated by the prolonged wrangling over formation of a new government. Since the inconclusive outcome of elections Nov. 1, Shamir and his Likud Party have negotiated with Peres and his Labor Party, as well as with an array of rightist and religious parties, in hopes of putting together a governing majority in the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament.

On Saturday, Shamir repeated his public preference for an alliance with Labor, but Israel Television reported that he may conclude an agreement on a narrow right-wing coalition early this week.

The report said that two outstanding conflicts are keeping Likud and Labor apart: First, Labor’s opposition to new Israeli settlements in the West Bank and in Gaza, which Likud favors; and second, Labor’s discomfort with promises made by Shamir to religious parties to expand the sway of Orthodox religious rules over Israeli secular life.

In addition, a Likud-Labor accord would require some joint statement of policy about the West Bank and Gaza. Peres has said he is willing to put some of the land under Arab control in return for an ironclad peace treaty. Shamir has said that all of the land is part of Israel. There is no indication that either has abandoned his preference.