U.S. Rejects Shamir View on Ending Intifada

The Bush Administration, firming its stand in preparation for what could be tense talks with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir this week, on Tuesday rejected Israel’s insistence that the 15-month-old Palestinian uprising must end before Middle East peace talks can begin.

“We’ve never said . . . that we expect the intifada to come to a complete halt before anything else can happen,” a senior Administration official told reporters, using the Arabic term for the uprising.

End of Occupation Sought

The official’s comments at a White House briefing came about 24 hours after President Bush endorsed a “properly structured” international conference on the Middle East and called for an end to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Although each of the positions is consistent with stands taken by the Reagan Administration, they represent a change of emphasis for the Bush Administration. And the timing of the comments underlines the differences between Washington and Jerusalem in the approach to the peace process.

Shamir, who objects to any sort of international conference or to the easing of the Israeli occupation until the intifada ends, reacted defiantly.

“I’m immune to pressure,” Shamir told reporters who traveled with him on an El Al flight from Tel Aviv to New York on Tuesday. The prime minister confers in Washington with Secretary of State James A. Baker III today and meets with Bush at the White House on Thursday.

Difficult to Push Around

Most U.S. officials who have dealt with Shamir agree that he is a very difficult person to push around. Nevertheless, there is growing pressure on the Israeli government to end its effort to stifle the intifada with military force. Since the uprising began in December, 1987, more than 400 Palestinians and 18 Israeli Jews have been killed.

Adding to the pressure, a group of 200 prominent American Jews--including entertainer Woody Allen, television producer Norman Lear, novelist Phillip Roth and playwright Arthur Miller--issued a statement calling on Shamir to negotiate with the PLO and to consider the possibility of a Palestinian state.

“Many American Jews, loyal supporters of Israel, do not support the suppression of the Palestinian people and the continued occupation of the West Bank and Gaza,” the group said. “You do not have a blank check from American Jewry to continue these policies.”

The statement was written by Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine, a Jewish journal in the United States that often has complained that many established Jewish organizations are too uncritical in their endorsement of Israeli government policy.

Others who signed the statement included Rabbi Leonard Beerman of Hollywood; Rabbi Burt Jacobson of Berkeley; Joseph L. Rauh Jr., former president of Americans for Democratic Action; feminist leader and author Betty Friedan; poet Allen Ginsberg; former Yippie Abbie Hoffman, and authors Irving Howe, Marge Piercy, Carl Bernstein and I. F. Stone.

“Unless Shamir agrees to direct negotiations with the PLO aimed at allowing them the same national self-determination that Israel rightly claims for itself, he will simply prolong the agony and immorality of the occupation,” Lerner said in a press statement.

The Bush Administration has called for “reciprocal and reinforcing” gestures by the Israelis and the Palestinians to end the violence of the intifada. In a diplomatic message to Jerusalem, the Administration urged Israel to remove its troops from the predominantly Arab cities and towns of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in effect giving up on its effort to pacify the area by force.

Pressure on PLO

In return, the Administration is urging the PLO to use its influence to persuade Palestinians in the territories to limit their protest to peaceful means.

Shamir has said that he would consider dismantling the military government of the occupied territories but only after the intifada ends. The senior Administration official who briefed reporters Tuesday made it clear that the United States objects to Israel’s attempt to require an end to the uprising as a condition for further progress in the peace process.

Meanwhile, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, wrapping up a two-day visit to Washington, said there is no way to stop the intifada without an end to the Israeli occupation.

With Baker standing at his side, Mubarak told reporters at the State Department: “Neither you nor anybody else would be able to stop the intifada. . . . Let us be realistic and practical. We all hope that we could reach peace and avoid losing lives and spending money for killing and bloodshed.”

Mubarak said he once told a Jewish audience, “To stop the intifada, give hope to the people that their problems will be (solved).”

Arab diplomats in Washington say that the uprising has taken on such a momentum that the PLO could not call it off even if it wanted to.