Aide Says Shamir Met With Local Palestinian Activists

In recent weeks, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir has met with local Palestinian activists who in all probability sent reports back to the Palestine Liberation Organization about Israel’s peace plan, Shamir’s top aide said Monday.

The aide, Yosef Ben-Aharon, insisted that such contacts do not constitute talks with the PLO, with which Israel refuses to deal. The Palestinians are reporting to the PLO only to protect themselves and not at the behest or knowledge of Shamir, Ben-Aharon explained.

“It’s an insurance policy for the Arabs,” Ben-Aharon said. “You would expect them to clear their meetings or report to the PLO just to defend themselves from accusations they are dealing independently.”

The comments were the first by Shamir’s office to suggest that it was expected that conversations he has with Arabs from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip have been passed on to the PLO.

The remarks by Ben-Aharon, who is director of the prime minister’s office, coincided with reports that Shamir recently met with PLO supporters from the occupied lands. Shamir has vowed never to deal with Arabs who represent the organization or who follow its dictates. His government not only considers the PLO wedded to terror but also opposes the group’s demand for an independent state next to Israel.

At his headquarters in Tunisia, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat asserted that he had authorized meetings between Palestinian representatives and Shamir.

“Shamir is going around these days saying he is meeting Palestinian representatives in the territories. He says these are secret meetings, against the will of the PLO,” Arafat told an Italian paper.

“That is not true,” he continued. “None of these meetings have taken place against our will. We have approved them from the beginning, and after the talks we have received full reports from our people.”

In Israel, newspapers published the names of four Palestinians who met with Shamir in recent days: Radwan abu Ayyash, head of the pro-PLO Arab Journalists Assn.; attorney Jamil Tarifi and pharmacist Ezzidin Aryan, all from the West Bank, and Mansour Shawwa, from the Gaza Strip.

Aryan heads the Red Crescent medical rescue society and belongs to the Palestine National Council, the PLO’s self-styled parliament-in-exile. Shawwa is a member of a prominent family that has long had ties with Jordan’s government. All denied meeting with Shamir.

Technically, rules imposed by Israel’s government ban contacts with the PLO, but it has never been clear whether that extends to open supporters. Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin and a representative of his in the occupied land, Shmuel Goren, have met with several pro-PLO activists in recent months, Israeli sources said, including the four mentioned in the Israeli press.

Shamir has been looking for local Palestinians to sign onto his plan for elections in the West Bank and Gaza as a first step to peace. However, he has tiptoed carefully around the question of with whom he is willing to talk. Since offering his plan, Shamir has come under fire from hawkish members of his own Likud Party for risking the surrender of the occupied lands.