Shamir: if PLO Leaves Beirut, Israel’s Operation Will End ‘in a Few Days or Weeks’

Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir said today that Israel would know by tomorrow whether a solution has been agreed upon leading to the departure of some 6,000 Palestine Liberation Organization terrorists from Beirut.

Interviewed by Jerusalem on ABC-TV’s “This Week with David Brinkley,” Shamir said that the talks that Defense Minister Ariel Sharon is having with President Reagan’s special envoy Philip Habib will be a “test” of whether the PLO is ready to leave west Beirut. He said if it is true, the operation will be ended in “a few days or weeks.”

Shimon Peres, chairman of the Labor Alignment, also said he believed the situation would be ended in a few days to two weeks. But Peres, interviewed in Washington on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press,” said there would either be a successful end to the negotiations or Israel would end it through a military solution.

Shamir said that Israel had several questions that had to be answered. He said these included when an international force would go into Beirut, where the PLO will go, and a timetable for departure. He noted that Israel has already made a concession about the international force, which will include U.S., French and Lebanese troops. Israel originally wanted the force to enter Beirut only after the PLO had left and now Israel was wiling to allow them to enter after a majority of the PLO terrorists had departed, he said.

ARENS SEEKS A ‘ROSTER’ OF PLO TERRORISTS

In another television interview today, Moshe Arens, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, said he was “hopeful” that a solution was near but was “skeptical.” Arens said that in his opinion, there would have to be a “roster” listing the PLO terrorists leaving and where they are going. “I am not sure that we are close to that kind of roster,” he said on CBS-TV’s “Face the Nation” while stressing he was not saying that a roster was a demand being made by the Israeli government.

Arens admitted that there had been differences of opinion between Israel and the U.S. recently. He said this is because Israel believes “turning the screw” on the PLO would help convince them to leave while the U.S. has argued that a “totally quiet” environment is necessary for the success of Habib’s negotiations. But Arens stressed that while the U.S., the Lebanese government and Israel all want the PLO to leave,” the most interested in doing it by negotiations is Israel because it is the Israeli army that would suffer casualties through a military operation.

Peres noted that while the Israeli army could have easily taken west Beirut, it did not do so because it wanted Habib’s efforts to succeed. He said Israel has paid an “extremely heavy price” to allow the negotiations to continue. If Habib is successful, the “whole air will be changed immediately” between the U.S. and Israel, Peres stated.

But former Undersecretary of State George Ball, who also appeared on the ABC program, said the U.S. efforts to remove the PLO from Beirut is “retrogressive.” He said if it succeeds, Israel will be able to go ahead with its plans to annex the West Bank and Gaza Strip and “ultimately the annexation of Lebanon up to the Litani River.”

PLO AND PALESTINIAN ARABS ARE NOT IDENTICAL

Arens stressed, however, that the PLO should not be confused with the Palestinian Arabs, He said that the PLO had terrorised the residents of the West Bank and Jordan was afraid of them. With this threat removed, the autonomy negotiations could go forward.

Peres also said that the West Bank residents might be more willing to negotiate now without being threatened by the PLO. He also saw Jordan as more willing to negotiate because of the Iran-Iraq War and the improved relations with Egypt.

“The Palestinians are not our enemies,” Peres said. “In the wake of the Beirut and Lebanese negotiations and operations, the time has come to solve the Palestinian problem in a peaceful manner, in a respectful manner by having direct negotiations.”

But Peres said autonomy was only an interim solution. “I as an Israeli and as a Jewish person, would not like under any circumstances to dominate 1.3 million Palestinians against their own wishes,” he said. He said there was a need to provide Palestinian “self-expression” which he said could come through a Jordanian-Palestinian solution.

REJECTS MEDIA CHARGES

Peres rejected as “unbased and unfounded” the frequent charges in the media that Israel has changed. He noted that Israel is conducting a war with full debates continuing in the Knesset, demonstrations against the government and protests by military officers. He noted that while every generation thinks that the younger generation is not as good as it was, he expressed confidence in Israel’s young people. He said he found Israel’s soldiers are “con{SPAN}##rned{/SPAN} not to kill a single Arab unnecessarily” and to safeguard the lives of civilians.

Peres, who was Defense Minister in the last Labor government, said the war in Lebanon showed a “clear-cut superiority” of American arms over Soviet weapons. “If I were an American, I would be proud about the technology you produce,” he said.