To Set the Stage for Peace, Israel Must Agree to Steps U.S. Asked of Palestinians

The United States’ initiation of a dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organization is promising. It represents a historic shift in U.S. policy toward a more balanced approach in dealing with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and away from the one-sided, pro-Israel approach that has been the hallmark of Washington’s role in the Middle East for the last 40 years.

As a result of past policy, the United States turned a blind eye to questionable Israeli actions--among them the proliferation of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, settlements that the United States itself considers an obstacle to peace. Since 1967, more than 150 such settlements have been established, with a population of more than 100,000 Israelis, on more than half the land in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Although the settlements are in blatant violation of the Geneva Convention, U.S. aid to Israel has not wavered--in fact, it has increased (Congress’ 1988 appropriation for Israel was $3 billion).

The United States has been equally unwavering in its foreign policy where the Palestinians were concerned. But, where the United States took a tolerant attitude toward virtually every Israeli excess, it gave microscopic scrutiny to every move that the PLO took toward peace. For example, the United States rejected as insufficient the recent resolutions of the Palestine National Council in Algiers, insisting that a dialogue was not possible until subtle semantic nuances were articulated.

The Palestinians, as was evidenced in Geneva two weeks ago, have made a profound overture toward a just peace. In response, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir emphatically reiterated that his country would never speak with the PLO, which the vast majority of Palestinians consider to be their representative. In short, Israel has rejected the Palestinian peace initiative. For the United States to be an honest broker, it must expect Israel to make progress toward negotiations that is commensurate with the Palestinians’ initiatives.

In order for the United States to realize its stated objective of a comprehensive peace in the Middle East, it is incumbent on the incoming Bush Administration to be firm and consistent. It must make clear the specific actions expected of Israel’s new government, which are necessary for initiating peace negotiations:

--Recognize the legitimate rights of the Palestinians to exist in their own homeland, in peace and security.

--Renounce all forms of terrorism, including state-sponsored terrorism against Palestinians in the occupied territories and against Palestinian and Lebanese refugees in Lebanon. Israel must also comply with the FBI’s demand that it extradite to the United States the Israeli-American fugitive, Robert Manning. He is considered a prime suspect in the 1985 bombing that killed Alex Odeh, a leader in the Los Angeles-area Palestinian-American community. Manning is a member of the FBI-classified terrorist organization, the Jewish Defense League, and is known to be residing in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba.

--Accept the provisions of U.N. Resolution 242, which calls for a withdrawal from all territories occupied during the 1967 war. Ironically, this resolution, which has served as the basis of the American refusal to deal with the PLO in the past, has not been accepted in its entirety by Israel itself.

Israel must agree to these steps, the same as those required of Palestinians, if it isto show that it is genuinely interested in peace.

Shamir, who considers rock-throwing by Palestinian youths to be a form of terrorism and who professes to abhor terrorism, is on record as making the following proterrorism comments in an article that he wrote in 1943, reprinted in the Israeli daily Al Hamishmar on Dec. 24, 1987:

“Neither Jewish ethics nor Jewish tradition can disqualify terrorism as a means of combat. We are very far from having any moral qualms as far as our national war goes. We have before us the command of the Torah, whose morality surpasses that of any other body of laws in the world:’Ye shall blot them out to the last man.’We are particularly far from having any qualms with regard to the enemy, whose moral degradation is universally admitted here. But first and foremost, terrorism is for us a part of the political battle being conducted under the present circumstances, and it has a great part to play.”

Shamir was, of course, referring to the terrorism that he and the group under his leadership, the Stern Gang, practiced in Palestine against the British and native Palestinians before the establishment of the state of Israel.

We are at a historic point in the quest for a lasting resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Now the international community looks on anxiously as the United States more clearly defines its mediating role. Israel must be persuaded to overcome its intransigence and accept the reality of Palestine so that the land holy to Muslims, Jews and Christians can be spared further torment and the sanctity of human life can be restored.