Shamir Renews Offer of Autonomy to Arabs

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir outlined a Middle East peace plan Wednesday that repeats his longstanding offer of autonomy for Palestinians, while declining to hint whether such autonomy would end in perpetual Israeli rule of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Shamir’s comments to reporters were the clearest sign in weeks that he is not ready to budge from positions that have been rejected by the Palestinians and that have left Israel isolated internationally.

The prime minister said Israel is prepared to offer “full autonomy” to the Arabs in the occupied West Bank and Gaza during an interim period leading to final talks. His outline was based squarely on the 1978 Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt, which Shamir has steadfastly used as a guide.

Troops Would Pull Back

Shamir added that during the period of autonomy, designed to last for five years, the Israeli army would pull out of big cities in the West Bank and Gaza, as stipulated in the Camp David Accords. “There will be some concentration of our troops in specified locations not including big centers of population,” he said.

“I am deeply convinced that the moment we can get to this stage and negotiations will start, positive results will come,” Shamir concluded.

Reporters who asked Shamir’s spokesman, Avi Pazner, to characterize the significance of the prime minister’s remarks were told:

“The prime minister was reiterating his readiness to implement Camp David and grant the Palestinians full autonomy.”

Pressed as to whether Shamir has ever before so explicitly stated the terms of what he is prepared to accept, Pazner answered: “He always spoke like this. People just don’t listen.”

Arab reaction was negative. Faisal Husseini, considered the top pro-PLO leader in the occupied lands, said: “Compared to his old stand, he has moved a step, but it is a far step from meeting the demands or conditions of the Palestinian people. We can’t accept it.”

The Palestine Liberation Organization, according to a report from Tunis, where the group’s leaders reside in exile, considers Shamir’s plan warmed-over Camp David and a ploy to control the West Bank and Gaza forever.

“I advise Mr. Shamir to stop digging into his old stock and bringing out these goods which are out of date. . . . No Palestinians or Arabs will speak to him on this basis,” PLO spokesman Ahmed Abdul-Rahman told the Reuters news agency.

A skeptical official at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, who asked not to be identified by name, commented, “Shamir is toying with trial balloons, trying to make old positions seem new.”

Shamir, in giving a skeletal version of the Camp David schedule, said: “The peace process will be composed of two stages. The first stage will be interim conditions, and this will include full autonomy, etc. The second stage will be direct negotiations, without any preconditions between Israel, the Palestinian Arabs and some Arab countries, if they will join the negotiations.”

“Full autonomy” means local self-rule for Palestinians while Israel controls the land and borders. The phrase “without preconditions” is shorthand for Shamir’s resistance to a guaranteed surrender of all or part of the West Bank and Gaza in return for a peace agreement.

“No one has the right to dictate the final outcome,” Shamir said.

That statement was an evident rejection of demands by the PLO for an independent state, as well as to American calls for Israel to give up at least some part of the land, which might then be attached to neighboring Jordan.

Israel has been under heavy pressure to come up with a peace plan since last fall, when the PLO began new diplomatic moves aimed at convening international peace talks on the Middle East. Words of moderation from PLO leaders netted the group talks with the United States and renewed stature in Western Europe.

The PLO wants to be a party to any talks; Israel refuses to meet with the organization.

In recent weeks, top Israeli officials have given confused signals as to how Israel will respond to the fluid diplomatic scene. Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin has tried to open avenues of contact with pro-PLO Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza. Shamir, while not criticizing Rabin, says these moves are just Rabin’s private “ideas” and not a peace plan.

Shamir’s spokesman, Pazner, was asked whether the peace outline issued Wednesday is the final framework for the government’s peace plan that Shamir has promised since he began his second term as prime minister last month.

“Not at all,” he replied. “This will come later.”

Washington responded cautiously to Shamir’s remarks. A State Department official spokesman declined to evaluate them.

Israeli critics predicted that a peace plan based on an open-ended view of Camp David would go nowhere.

“It’s a non-starter,” said Abrasha Tamir, who was an adviser on security affairs to the Israeli government when it worked out the Camp David agreement.