Hussein Assails Israel’s Plan for Arab Elections

King Hussein on Thursday assailed Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s plan for elections in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, calling it an attempt to buy time.

The Israeli proposal avoids “facing increasing world pressures to solve the (Palestinian) problem in a just and durable way,” Hussein said.

“My own suspicions are very much alive that Shamir and the Cabinet are really trying to find a way out of the situation they are facing and (to find) a way to waste time.”

The Palestine Liberation Organization leadership has already rejected the plan as a trick to usurp Palestinian rights and evade U.N. resolutions on Israeli withdrawal.

Speaking at Marka air base near Amman, Hussein said, “This (the PLO decision) is a Palestinian move, and I believe it is my duty and the duty of all our Arab brethren to support it.

‘Many Concerns’

“I have concerns, many concerns, but I think the Palestinian leadership is capable of expressing itself,” he said in his first public comment on the proposal since it was endorsed by Israel’s Knesset, or Parliament, on Wednesday.

The plan calls for the election of Palestinian representatives to negotiate limited self-rule of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestinians would gain autonomy for five years, then negotiate control of the territories that Israel captured from Jordan and Egypt in the 1967 war.

The plan, essentially a revival of the 1978 Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt, also makes provision for talks with Jordan on a final settlement.