PLO Broke Terrorism Vow, Arens Says

Launching a campaign to persuade the United States to halt its dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organization, Foreign Minister Moshe Arens today accused the PLO of breaking its promise to refrain from terror.

“Two days ago, we had an example of a terrorist act by a branch of the PLO,” Arens said in a speech to the New York-based Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

He cited a clash Saturday in which Israeli troops killed five Palestinian fighters on the northern border of Israel’s self-proclaimed security zone in south Lebanon.

The radical PLO factions of George Habash’s Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Syrian-backed Palestinian Liberation Front said their guerrillas were on a mission to attack Israeli positions.

Arens said the action “clearly and unequivocally violated” U.S. conditions for opening talks with the PLO after a 13-year boycott.

“I presume that in Washington, they also noticed what happened. But, to the extent that somebody there may not have noticed, we will draw his attention to it,” Arens added on Israel Radio after the speech.

A Foreign Ministry official later said, “Israel is calling on the United States to reconsider the dialogue considering that the PLO, the Habash faction, took responsibility for the attempt to penetrate Israel.”

U.S. officials shocked Israel by opening talks with the PLO in December after PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat renounced terrorism and said he accepted Israel.