‘Occupation’ a Misnomer, Shamir Says--’This Country Belongs to Us’

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir has rejected the term occupation to describe his country’s rule over the West Bank and Gaza Strip, saying that Israel is at home there.

Earlier this month, during Shamir’s visit to Washington, President Bush said that the United States opposes “permanent occupation” of the West Bank and Gaza Strip by Israel. The proposal that Israel give up land seized in the 1967 Six-Day War in return for peace with the Palestinians and neighboring Arab nations is a key element in the Bush Administration’s Middle East peace initiative.

“We are not occupiers,” Shamir asserts. “For us, it is not a foreign land. . . . We believe it is our country, and we are people of principles.”

Published in Italy

Shamir made these remarks in an interview published Saturday in four Italian newspapers. Italy’s Prime Minister Ciriaco De Mita is scheduled to begin a three-day visit to Israel today to hear Shamir’s proposals for Palestinian elections.

“We will not withdraw from these territories which we believe belong to us,” Shamir said. “We believe that all this country that is called Palestine--or in the Bible is called the Land of Israel--this country belongs to us, the Jewish people.”

Asked if he would consider withdrawal as the price of Arab peace with Israel, he told the Italian journalists:

“Absolutely not. You Europeans continue to fail to understand that for us these lands are not like Algeria for France or Libya for Italy 40 years ago. (They) are an integral part of our territory, and we are not prepared to lose them.”

Since his return from the United States on April 14, Shamir has gradually refined his plan for elections, which are designed to permit Palestinians to elect representatives to engage in peace talks. In Washington, Shamir had said that, regarding elections, “Everything is open to negotiations.”

Topics to Be Limited

However, he told the Italian reporters that Arabs elected from the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be prohibited from bringing up topics other than arrangements for self-administration under Israeli rule.

“They will know they will have to negotiate only about defined subjects--about an interim arrangement . . . of a kind of a self-rule. The subject of negotiation will not be the creation of a Palestinian state.

“And if somebody of the elected people should try to do other things, we would not allow it,” he declared.

Members of the Palestine Liberation Organization will not be permitted to participate, Shamir added. Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin declared last week that members of the PLO who tried to run would be thrown in jail.

“Of course, there is no question about it,” Shamir concurred. “If he’s a member of the PLO, it makes no difference if he is elected or not elected.”

Shamir opposes holding talks with the PLO or setting up an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza.

During the interview, Shamir denied that Bush had set a mid-summer deadline for getting the election proposal off the ground. “Shamir is immune from pressure,” the Israeli leader said.

Last week, Shamir explained to Israeli politicians that the elections are a means of reviving the Camp David formula for a settlement with the Palestinians. In line with that formula, the elected Palestinian representatives would negotiate terms of extending Israeli rule five years, after which a final settlement would be worked out, he said.

‘Nothing New in Proposals’

“There is nothing new in the elections proposals, because they exist in the Camp David Accords,” he told a parliamentary committee on foreign affairs.

Shamir’s election proposal has met resistance inside Israel from among members of his Likud Party. Several rightist politicians have warned that elections would be a step toward formation of a Palestinian state.

“I cannot accept a political process that will lead to an undesirable end,” said Economics Minister Yitzhak Modai, a prominent member of Likud.

Privately, some Likud members talk of a “Begin-ization of Shamir,” a reference to former Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who, in the Camp David agreements with Egypt, surrendered the occupied Sinai peninsula after long refusing to consider giving it up.

Shamir has sought to ease such concerns. “The government will make sure that Israel remains in complete control of developments,” he assured the committee on foreign affairs.

The Israeli leader has yet to reveal details of how or when the vote would be carried out. He said the matter has to be discussed by his Cabinet.

So far, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as the PLO, have rejected Shamir’s plan. Informally, however, they have floated at least two counterproposals: that Israel withdraw from the occupied territories in advance of elections and that international supervisors oversee the vote.