BACKGROUND IMP THE JEWISH NEWS 27676 Franklin Rd. Southfield, MI 48034 We've Just Moved FROM Acct. # NAME ADDRESS CITY STATE ZIP enclose old label TO: Fill out, clip and mail. Please allow 4 weeks. Effective Date CIVI44S4 4 greatest Our ee idor (: i : 0 Natural 7Resource.:, ' 1 #0 \ VINTAGE WRISTWATCHES WANTED PATEK PHILIPPE ROLEX AUDEMARS VACHERON LeCOULTRE CORUM COIN GUBELIN CARTIER MOONPHASES CHRONOGRAPHS All interesting or unusual time pieces. Need not be running. ABBOTT'S-COINEX CORPORATION 1393 S. Woodward Ave. • Birmingham, MI 48011 • (313) 644-6833 36 FRIDAY, JANUARY 12, 1990 Shamir Attacked On All Sides For Handling Of Weizman Affair HELEN DAVIS Foreign Correspondent T here is widespread speculation that Israel will have to replace some of its most senior intel- ligence agents in Europe because their cover was blown during last week's po- litical crisis over Science Minister Ezer Weizman's contacts with Palestine Lib- eration Organization offi- cials. The 48-hour crisis, the most serious since the na- tional unity government was established in 1984, was defused when Prime Min- ister Yitzhak Shamir withdrew his threat to fire the maverick minister after Weizman agreed to leave the inner cabinet for 18 months, but remain in the govern- ment. The row erupted after Shamir revealed that Weiz- man had engaged in a series of illicit contacts with PLO officials. Such encounters contravene the policy of the national unity government as well as a 1986 law which prohibits contacts between Israelis and PLO officials. According to a report in the respected London Sun- day Telegraph, Weizman had been under surveillance, both at home and abroad, for some time, during which Israeli agents had monitored his telephone calls and ob- tained secret PLO reports on his contacts with PLO offi- cials in Europe and the Mid- dle East. In order to support his assertions — and his threatened action, which came perilously close to cap- sizing the national unity government — Shamir quoted extensively from in- telligence documents, which detailed a telephone conver- sation and meetings bet- ween Weizman and PLO of- ficials abroad. Senior executives of the Mossad, Israel's foreign in- telligence agency, and the Shin Bet, Israel's domestic intelligence agency, are reported to be furious because they believe that key agents have been com- promised by the revelations. They are said to be par- ticularly incensed that Shamir leaked transcripts of a meeting last June between Weizman and Dr. Nabil Rimalwi, the PLO represen- tative in Geneva. They are also angry that Shamir leaked transcripts of a telephone conversation between Weizman and a PLO official in Tunis. The PLO contact has been iden- tified as Dr Ahmed Tibi, who has previously served as an intermediary between the PLO and Israeli officials on humanitarian issues. Despite the political com- promise which was patched Minister Weizman: Not denying them. together last week, Shamir refused to withdraw his charges and Weizman has made little effort to deny them. He admitted meeting Rimwali briefly and unex- pectedly in a hotel lobby in Geneva after being in- troduced by an Egyptian en- v o y , but the leaked transcripts indicated that the meeting in fact took place in Rimwali's car, where the two men made elaborate arrangements to use code-names in their con- versations. According to the transcript, they agreed to re- fer to Israel's Labor leader Shimon Peres as "Laromme," while the PLO headquarters in Tunis was to be known as "Manage- ment." Weizman also acknowl- edged receiving a call from the PLO's Tunis head- quarters seeking his counsel on the PLO's response to the five-point proposal for Israeli-Palestinian talks proposed by U.S. Secretary of State James Baker. The quick-tempered, ear- thy former commander of the Israel Air Force boasted that his advice had led to the PLO's qualified acceptance of the Baker plan. At the same time, Weiz- man implicated Peres in the contacts, claiming that the Labor leader had helped him coach the PLO officials on how to respond to the United States initiative. "The son of a bitch was on another telephone to me at the time — and now he doesn't remember it," Weizman is widely quoted as telling a stormy meeting of Labor colleagues. It is generally believed that Shamir initiated the af- fair to underline his implacable opposition to negotiations with PLO members in advance of this month's scheduled meeting in Washington between Sec- retary Baker and the foreign ministers of Israel and Egypt. In case the message was lost, the point was em- phasized by Yossi Ahimeir, a senior Shamir aide, who declared: "Today it is clear to the Egyptians and the Americans — and anyone else who wants to know — that the PLO is not a partner for negotiations." The tripartite talks in Washington are intended to deal arrangements for a dia- ( Premier Shamir: Maintains charges. logue between Israeli and Palestinian officials in Cairo regarding proposed local elections in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip to elect Palestinians who will negotiate an autonomy agreement with Israel. Shamir is insisting that only Palestinian residents of territories who are not af- filiated with the PLO can <