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While Kelly told a congres- sional hearing in Washington that it would be an exaggera- tion to say there had been of- ficial dealings between Israel and the PLO, he left the un- mistakable impression that such negotiations were, in fact, underway. Tough-talking Likud wunderkind and Deputy Foreign Minister Binyamin Netanyahu categorically denied that any talks, direct or indirect, were in progress: "We are not conducting, nor "A STEP ABOVE" IS THE NAME OF at the8Onan OUR GALLERY WITHIN OUR DESIGN STUDIO EACH ORIGINAL ART PIECE IS SELECTED WITH CARE & TASTE design studio Crosswinds Mall FROM JURRIED ARTISTS AROUND THE WORLD Corner of Lone Pine & Orchard Lake West Bloomfield, MI 48033 851-8880 VISIT OUR GALLERY SHOWROOM A FEAST FOR THE EYES LOIS ROSS ASID INDEED ... A STEP ABOVE! For insurance call SY WARSHAWSKY, C.L.0 6668 Orchard Lake Road In the West Bloomfield Shopping Plaza W. Bloomfield 48033 626-2652 Office Phone See me for car, home, life and health insurance Like a good neighbor. State Farm is there. 28 FRIDAY, JULY 21, 1989 Binyamin Netanyahu: Categorical denial. will we conduct, negotiations with the PLO," he said in an interview on Israel Radio. Indeed, rejection of talks with the PLO was the glue — the overriding consensus — that held the national unity government together: "Dissolving this glue," he added, implicitly warning Kelly to pull his head in, "is certainly contrary to the very existence of the government." Spokesmen for Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir ("absolutely no contacts, secret or otherwise") and for Foreign Minister Moshe Arens ("no contacts with the PLO") were equally for- thright and unequivocal. It might be possible to ascribe mischievous intent to a PLO statement from Tunis Yossi Beilin: Categorical statesman. that Israeli officials "have been sending us ideas and suggestions, some of them ad- dressed directly to the PLO." Such intent does not, however, explain the categorical statement by Deputy Finance Minister Yossi Beilin, a close aide to Labor Party leader Shimon Peres that "for the past two- and-a- half months, there have been clear and official negotiations between the Israeli government and the PLO." So where exactly does the truth lie? As is so often the case in Middle East, not least Israeli, politics, the answer is somewhere in between. True, there is no hard evidence to support the asser- tion that Israel is holding of- ficial, direct talks with the PLO, but equally, there is no doubt that indirect talks — voluntary and involuntary — are being conducted through at least three primary mediators: • Egypt has been speaking intensively to both sides for the past seven years. • America, Israel's closest ally, embarked on an official dialogue with the PLO last December. • Israeli leaders, notably Prime Minister Shamir and Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin, meet regularly with Palestinians in the occupied territories, who are then per- mitted to travel abroad for "consultations." In addition, a host of other Western leaders, who maintain close contact with Jerusalem, are now openly meeting with PLO officials. Last month, PLO leader Yasser Arafat paid an official visit to Paris, where he was guest of President Francois Mitterrand; and just last week, British Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe held his first meeting with a PLO official, Bassam Abu Sharif, a senior Arafat aide who is widely regarded as the author and ideologue of the PLO's diplomatic offensive. The very act of talking to both sides has cast leaders in the role of mediators — con- duits — between the PLO and Israel. Israeli leaders boldly pro- claim that they do not want to hear reports of United States contacts with the PLO, a point that was dramatically underscored earlier this month when Israel's Am- bassador to Switzerland Yehuda Horam, apparently acting on instructions from the Israeli Foreign Ministry, undiplomatically walked out when a United States envoy attempted to relay the Whether the Israeli officials like it or not, the expanding contacts between Western leaders and senior Palestinian officials inevitably involves the Israelis in some form of indirect talks with the PLO. substance of a recent U.S.- PLO encounter. But whether the Israeli of- ficials like it or not, witting- ly or unwittingly, the expan- ding contacts between Western leaders and senior Palestinian officials in- evitably involves the Israelis in some form of indirect talks, perhaps even negotiations, with the PLO. Nor is this mediation role confined to the West. Ruma- nian President Nicolae Ceausescu played a critical part in bringing Egypt and Israel to the negotiating table in the late Seventies and, more recently, he has served as a channel of communica- tion between former Prime Minister Menachem Begin and, later, Shamir. Indeed, there is a strong precedent for indirect negotiations between Israel and the PLO. In 1981, long before the start of the official U.S.-PLO dialogue, Washington, in co- ordination with Saudi Arabia, brokered