PLO Rebuffs U.S., Won’t Expel Guerrilla Chief Abbas : Diplomacy: The group also refuses to denounce the raid on Israeli beaches. It accuses Washington of trying to sever dialogue.

A defiant Palestine Liberation Organization declined Thursday to take immediate action to expel guerrilla leader Abul Abbas or to condemn his abortive raid last week on crowded Israeli beaches, instead accusing the United States of using the raid as a pretext to sever its dialogue with the PLO.

The PLO Executive Committee, concluding three days of closed meetings in Baghdad, Iraq, left the door open for U.S. suspension of the dialogue by failing to meet U.S. demands that it denounce the raid and eject Abbas from his seat on the committee.

PLO sources said the executive leadership is facing pressure from increasingly restive radical factions who applauded the attack, which Israel thwarted by killing four of the raiders and capturing 12. No Israelis were injured.

The leadership elected to remain silent and leave the next move to Washington, expecting that the United States will find it in its own interest to continue its dialogue with the PLO.

“There’s not going to be any other response to the situation,” said one PLO official, who asked not to be identified by name. “The PLO cannot appear to be dictated to, even by a superpower like the United States, because that would weaken the PLO in the eyes of the Palestinians and all the Arab world. We don’t interfere with how the U.S. addresses its internal affairs, and we expect the U.S. will not interfere in our internal affairs.”

Washington is likely to make a decision soon on the dialogue, weighing the PLO’s response along with an investigation now under way to determine the precise circumstances of the raid. The PLO, while denying any advance knowledge of the attack, insists nonetheless that it fell within guidelines for its continued “armed struggle” against Israel and did not constitute a terrorist attack against civilians.

The attack has nonetheless threatened U.S.-PLO relations because it is the first incident since the December, 1988, inception of the dialogue that required such obvious intensive preparation and planning. It was also the first for which a member of the PLO’s Executive Committee--the head of the Palestine Liberation Front faction--claimed responsibility.

U.S. officials had hoped that the Executive Committee, if not moving to expel Abbas outright, would at least move to suspend him or publicly refer the matter to the full Palestine National Council, the PLO’s parliament in exile.

Now, Washington is facing a precarious diplomatic dilemma. It can punish the PLO’s silence by breaking off the dialogue, running the risk of encouraging more terrorist incidents and derailing any immediate prospect for peace in the region. Or it can remain silent and be seen as condoning terrorism.

On Tuesday, 30 U.S. senators called on the Bush Administration to reconsider the dialogue, and three senators sponsored a similar resolution Wednesday. Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) insisted that the PLO has to condemn the raid in order for a dialogue to continue. “If you wish to conduct a dialogue, your opposition to terrorism must be real, as well as rhetorical,” he said in a statement.

But PLO sources said the Palestinian leadership risked alienating an increasingly radical popular sentiment within the Palestinian community if it moved harshly and publicly against Abbas. The statement issued in Baghdad discouraged the issue by turning the tables and pointing an accusing finger at Washington.

“The committee discussed the fact that certain American circles hinted about pressures to stop the American-Palestinian dialogue . . . and affirmed that such stands represent a blow to the peace endeavors and constitute collusion meant to conceal the Israeli continuation of crimes and massacres against the Palestinian people. . . ,” the statement said.

In an earlier statement issued in Tunis, Tunisia, the PLO said the Abbas operation was “premeditatively seized as a cover for stopping the dialogue (and) renouncing the international responsibility the U.S. bears toward the political settlement. . . . “

Jamal Hillal, head of the PLO Information Bureau in Tunis, said there is strong feeling within the organization that the United States is using the Abbas raid as a pretext to renege on progress made during the dialogue and to return to an assumption that the most Palestinians can hope for is some form of limited autonomy in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“They’re using this operation by the PLF to close the dialogue and return to the old policy of Camp David and label the PLO as a terrorist organization, which puts us all back to square one,” he complained, and continued:

“It reflects a general lack of commitment to the dialogue and an uneven policy, where they expect the PLO to acknowledge the right of Israel to exist within secure borders and all the other things, but without asking anything from the Israeli side. . . .

“We don’t feel the Americans are serious, really, about the issues, and the area is getting nearer and nearer to the edge of an explosion.”

There has been no official meeting since last summer between PLO representatives and the designated American representative, Robert H. Pelletreau Jr., the U.S. ambassador to Tunisia, but PLO officials argue that there is a strong chance that the United States will continue the dialogue.

“The U.S. did not open the dialogue because it likes the PLO, or likes the color of our eyes,” said one. “It’s because it is in the interest of the United States to play a role in settling this conflict.”

BACKGROUND

Arab nations formed the Palestine Liberation Organization in May, 1964, to press for a Palestinian homeland. It has many factions, ranging from the dominant, moderate Fatah led by PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat to radical Marxist guerrillas. Israel refuses to talk to the PLO, denouncing it as a terrorist group. But Washington began a dialogue in December, 1988, after Arafat renounced terrorism and agreed in a U.N. speech to recognize Israel.