Arafat, Israel Reporters Debate Plan for Talks on Palestinian Issues

Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat, in an unusual direct appeal to the Israeli public, said Thursday that he endorses “open talks” with Israel, and he urged citizens to help him resist the most recent crackdown on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“How can you accept that, as Israelis?” Arafat declared, waving one of the controversial new identity cards required of residents in the occupied territories to help quell the 21-month-old Palestinian uprising. “You have to help me reject it, because I’m a human being, like you.”

In a sometimes heated exchange with Israeli journalists after a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Arafat refused to commit himself on Mubarak’s 10-point peace initiative, but he did endorse the Egyptian leader’s proposal for direct talks between Israelis and Palestinians--as long as the ground rules are left open.

“I have agreed to the preliminary conference that Mr. Mubarak has proposed,” Arafat said, “but open talks, without conditions. Not your conditions, not my conditions. No preconditions. Fair?”

While Egyptian and some moderate Israeli leaders have proposed the talks as a prelude to elections in the occupied territories, which would select a delegation to decide final peace issues, Arafat insisted that the talks lead the way to an international conference on peace in the Middle East.

“It’s our right to demand what we want,” Arafat said, “and it’s their right to demand what they want. That’s fair enough. Or aren’t you democratic? Have you been a little bit affected by the armed (Jewish) settlers (in the occupied territories)?”

Many of the PLO leader’s remarks were aimed directly at the Israeli journalists, whose request to interview Arafat prompted the press conference, which included other reporters as well. Israeli citizens by law are barred from contacts with the PLO except through “international” press conferences.

Appeals to Israeli Public

At times, the repartee became heated, as the Israeli journalists demanded to know whether the PLO would promise permanent peace if it were granted a Palestinian state in the West Bank, whether Israel should be negotiating with a group it considers a terrorist organization and why the PLO doesn’t call a cease-fire in the uprising, or intifada, as a prelude to any peace talks.

Arafat, in turn, used the occasion to appeal directly to the Israeli public, often framing his comments as if he were face to face with them over a bargaining table, while the Israeli reporters, just as often, argued back.

“Do you think we lack humanity?” he asked at one point, and then referred to a common Yiddish term for non-Jews. “Am I goy, and you’re a person, or what? I am a human being like you. I am not goy!”

Later, arguing with reporters over terrorism allegations, Arafat broke into a smile and declared: “Why should we go into these details? You are our cousins. We know each other. We want peace.”

“That’s what we want,” shot back one of the Israeli journalists.

“But what kind of peace?” Arafat went on. “We don’t want the peace of destruction and occupation and death.”

The PLO chairman said he is “always open to discussions which will bring us to a complete and just peace,” but he said it is up to Israel to respond formally to Mubarak’s 10 points before the PLO accepts or rejects them.

Israeli Cabinet Divided

The Israeli government has put off a final response in the wake of deep divisions within the Cabinet, whose most hard-line members, including Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, are strongly opposed to the Mubarak plan’s provisions for Israel to exchange land for peace, halt all Jewish settlements in the occupied territories and allow Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem to vote in any elections.

Israelis have also refused to negotiate with the PLO, a stand that has raised questions about who would make up the Palestinian panel in any direct talks. Would it be confined strictly to West Bank and Gaza residents, as the Israelis would prefer, or would representatives of the vast Palestinian refugee populations outside the territories be represented as well?

Mubarak has proposed including two Palestinians deported from the territories as one way of compromising, but Arafat said outsiders should not be allowed to dictate the makeup of the Palestinian panel.

“Aren’t I a representative of the Palestinians?” he said. “Am I the son of my people, or the son of a crook? I’m not able to say I accept such-and-such a person from your (Israeli) side. No. You’re free to choose who you want. And we have to be free in the same way. Or are you free, and we’re slaves?”