Israeli Report Said to Warn Against a Palestinian State

An intelligence estimate that says the Palestine Liberation Organization is Israel’s only realistic partner for peace talks also says the PLO’s goal of setting up an independent state poses a mortal danger to Israel, Israeli sources said Tuesday.

The intelligence estimate, which was delivered to top Israeli officials last week, is fast becoming a reservoir of leaks and counterleaks in Israel’s political war over two basic questions: With whom should peace be discussed and exactly what should be discussed?

At a press conference Tuesday, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir tried to put a stop to it all, for the quarrel over the intelligence estimate has overshadowed a solidarity conference of world Jewry convened in his name.

“All was a lie,” Shamir said of the leaks from the intelligence estimate. “All included in this information was a lie.”

Shamir’s political archrival, Finance Minister Shimon Peres, was present at the press conference and took evasive action when asked if the report was indeed a lie.

“I have my views. . . ,” Peres said, “and I think that a solution with the Palestinians must be a political one.”

When pressed about the intelligence estimate, he smiled and asked, “Are we under investigation?”

Peres’ performance was a display of official disunity of the sort meant to be submerged this week as about 1,500 Jewish leaders from around the world--almost half of them from the United States--gathered in Israel for a conference of solidarity with Israel.

Unity was the theme, but to some extent Israeli politics got in the way. Shamir and his right-wing Likud Party head a government in which Peres and his center-left Labor Party are noisy junior partners.

Labor Party Attitudes

The original leak of the intelligence estimate was said to have been the work of people in the Labor Party. An aide to Peres came out this week in favor of talks with the PLO, and a few other members of the party also favor making contact with the PLO. Peres himself favors some formula that would include giving up some of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip in return for peace.

Yosef Ben-Aharon, a top Shamir aide, said the leak was irresponsible, but he did not attribute it to Peres.

According to Ben-Aharon, the intelligence estimate--reportedly a combined effort of three Israeli intelligence services--says the PLO had “piggybacked onto the violence” of the 15-month-old Arab uprising in the occupied territories in order to win diplomatic points abroad and to assert a leadership role in the territories.

The latest leak, described as a counterleak, was the work of Shamir’s supporters in Likud, according to Israeli sources. Party officials had said that only a selective reading of the intelligence estimate would lead one to believe that it supports the notion that the PLO is a viable leader of most Palestinians.

“If the PLO wants a state, then why talk to the PLO?” a Likud official said, asking not to be identified by name.

Likud is unanimously opposed to talks with the PLO. The Likud view is that there are independent Palestinians who would be better negotiating partners. Shamir also opposes giving up control of the occupied West Bank or Gaza Strip.

The issue of whether to talk with the PLO is gaining urgency as the time approaches for Shamir’s visit in early April to Washington, where he is to meet with President Bush. The Bush Administration is looking for new peace ideas from Shamir, and Secretary of State James A. Baker III recently put forth the idea that Israel may someday have to talk with the PLO.

Meanwhile, the Arab uprising continues unabated, dividing Israelis as well as the Jewish community abroad.

On Tuesday, an Arab refugee camp dweller in the Gaza Strip stabbed to death an elderly man in Tel Aviv, then was arrested. Shamir seized on the incident to make a point about Israel’s defense problems. He told reporters at the solidarity conference: “A single Arab without any reason attacked Jewish people. . . . This is one small part of what we are facing.”

Wide Array of Opinions

At the solidarity meeting, which is to end today, a wide array of opinions have been heard on the question of war and peace. A few delegates have brought up the issue of talks with the PLO, and some have spoken out against consideration of any such move. Tuesday’s sessions were more subdued than earlier sessions, and there were expressions of support.

“The unity of the Jewish people is existing with diverse views,” said Seymour Reich, who heads the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. “We did not discuss specifics. It is not for us to decide.”

Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, said the large turnout was itself the message of the meeting.

“No one can say that world Jewry does not support Israel,” he said.

Hier was one of the proponents of the conference as a way of reversing perceptions about Jewish unity that have arisen out of Israel’s handling of the Arab uprising.