BEHIND THE HEADLINES I
No Confrontation, But
Peace Pressure Builds
HELEN DAVIS
Foreign Correspondent
p
JULES R. SCHUBOT
jewellers — gemologists
3001 West Big Beaver Road • Suite 112 • Troy, Michigan 48084 • (313) 649-1122
END YOUR ROOFING PROBLEMS THROUGH
CRAFTSMANSHIP
Woolf Roofing & Maintenance Inc.
A Third Generation Roofing Family in Detroit
Commercial - Industrial — High Rises
Single-Ply and Built-Up Systems
Fully Insured
Member
5-20 Year Warranties 18161 W. 13 Mile Rd.
National Roofing
Sheet Metal Fabrication
in Southfield
Contractors
Association
Free Inspections
646-2452
14
FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1989
alestine Liberation
Organization Chair-
man Yassir Arafat
may be poised to produce yet
another diplomatic coup by
calling the Israeli bluff and
accepting the principle of
elections among Palestinians
in the occupied West Bank
and Gaza Strip, according to
political sources in
Jerusalem.
The proposal to hold elec-
tions, thereby allowing the
Palestinians to produce local
leaders who can negotiate the
fine print of an interim
autonomy arrangement with
Israel, was made by Prime
Minister Yitzhak Shamir
during meetings with Presi-
dent Bush and Secretary of
State Baker last week.
Likud apparachiks who are
regarded as close to Shamir
were confident that the pro-
posal would not only play well
in Washington but that it
would be flatly rejected by the
PLO leader — and, therefore,
by the Palestinians in the
territories.
Initial public reactions from
Arafat — and from pro-PLO
Palestinians in the territories
— were indeed negative, but
sources in Jerusalem believe
that Arafat ultimately will
accept the proposals on condi-
tion that the United States
provided guarantees on two
_key issues:
Firstly, that the elections
are free and fair; secondly,
that they are not an end in
themselves but rather an in-
terim step along the road to
a final, comprehensive settle-
ment, which would involve
direct PLO participation and
Israeli withdrawal from the
territories.
To insure the continuation
of the process, Arafat, accor-
ding to the sources, will ask
the United States for a
timetable leading to a full-
blown international peace
conference and a compre-
hensive settlement of the
dispute.
Palestinians in the occupied
territories who publicly
scorned the Shamir proposals
as an "insult" and a
"joke"have privately endors-
ed that position:
It has also been supported
— with qualifications — by
Egypt's President Hosni
Mubarak, who has emerged
as the principal Arab cham-
pion of the Palestinian cause.
If Arafat ultimately rejects
local elections — even with
Yitzhak Shamir:
Being nudged toward peace talks.
American guarantees — and
condones the continuation of
the intifada, he will have a
tough job convincing the
Americans that his
diplomatic strategy and his
stated peaceful intentions are
truly genuine.
If, on the other hand, he ac-
cepts the principle of local
elections and fails to achieve
the minimal expectations of
either his radical left-wing or
those in the front line of the
uprising — an Israeli with-
drawal from the territories —
he could face a major split in
his ranks and stand accused
of undermining the what he
likes to describe as "the bless-
ed intifada."
An essential precondition of
Arafat's public support for
local elections, however, are
the American guarantees,
which will prevent the elec-
tions and autonomy from be-
ing set, in concrete and "eter-
nalized" as a final
settlement.
Political
sources
in
Jerusalem believe that the
U.S. administration is engag-
ing an elaborate, astute
diplomatic snooker match
with Israel and will be able to
satisfy most of Arafat's
demands.
According to the sources,
Washington's strategy is aim-
ed at luring the Israeli leader
into making specific pro-
posals which will generate an
irresistable momentum
toward far more profound
political process than he
would be prepared to concede
unilaterally.
The sub-text of the strategy
may well have been entitled,
"Accentuate The Positive:"
commit the Israeli leader to a
political path, however
limited, which can be used as
the basis for drawing him —
kicking and screaming, if
necessary — into a broader,
more far-reaching, more com-
prehensive program of action.