Shamir Adamant in Rebuff to Bush on Settlers, PLO

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir told President Bush in a letter today that his new government will support Jewish settlement in occupied Arab lands and will never give the PLO a role in peace talks, Israeli officials said.

The hard-line Israeli leader, answering renewed U.S. requests to respond to American proposals for peace talks with Palestinians, set conditions unacceptable to Palestinians and unpopular with Washington.

Shamir, in his letter to Bush, said he would gladly work with Israel’s major ally toward peace.

But he added, “As you know, Mr. President, we are opposed to the participation of deportees in the Palestinian delegation and also the participation of the East Jerusalem Arabs,” the officials quoted him as saying.

Both Bush and Secretary of State James A. Baker III have urged the Jewish state to make progress toward resolving the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Shamir’s letter, described by an Israel Radio commentator as “yes to Baker, but no to his questions,” restated the prime minister’s main beliefs--refusal to give any role in peace talks to the Palestine Liberation Organization and support for Jewish settlement in occupied Arab lands.

Relations between Israel and the United States, its guardian ally, have been strained since a left-right coalition government fell in March over Shamir’s refusal to adopt Baker’s November, 1989, proposals to convene the peace talks in Cairo.

Exasperated by the lack of progress, Baker publicly appealed to Israel this month, saying:

“When you’re serious about peace, call us.” And he gave the White House telephone number.

The new Israeli government is an alliance of mainstream conservatives, ultra-right nationalists and Orthodox rabbis.

It opposes leaving the occupied territories, is committed to boosting Jewish settlement there and favors harsher measures against a 30-month-old Palestinin uprising.