U.S. Policies Toward Israel Under Fire by Hussein and Arafat

The policies of the United States toward Israel were strongly criticized by King Hussein of Jordan and Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasir Arafat in separate interviews.

Hussein, in an interview published this week in the international edition of Newsweek magazine (but not in the domestic edition), accused the Israeli government of responsibility for the massacre of Palestinian civilians at the Shatila and Sabra refugee camps in west Beirut. He charged that it was an Israeli plan to encourage a “negative reaction” to President Reagan’s peace initiative outlined on September 1.

“The Israelis have a long history of this type of thing,” Hussein said. “Maybe we all needed this kind of shock to realize what is happening and what has happened for a long period of time.” Hussein said “Israel created these atrocities with American arms and American aid. I think that the United States should reassess its attitude toward a monster that it has helped to create.”

Arafat, meanwhile, in an interview Sunday on the CBS-TV “60 Minutes” program, charged the U.S. with complicity in the massacre of the Palestinians at the refugee camps. “What has been done in Beirut and in Lebanon was not an Israeli aggression,” the PLO leader said. “This is an American conspiracy against the Palestinians.”

Arafat added that he would be willing to conduct a dialogue for a Palestinian homeland with “All the democratic Jews who are living in Israel and outside Israel.” He said he would open a dialogue with the Reagan Administration provided it dropped its conditions for such a dialogue which include PLO recognition of Israel’s right to exist and acceptance of United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.

GEMAYEL EXPRESSES HIS VIEWS

At the same time, Lebanese President Amin Gemayel said the first step toward the restoration of Lebanese sovereignty and independence is the withdrawal of Israeli military forces from predominantly Moslem west Beirut.

“We have to recover our sovereignty in our capital, and from the capital, we could begin discussions for the withdrawal” of all foreign forces from Lebanon, Gemayel said Sunday in an interview on the ABC-TV “This Week With David Brinkley” program.

“Lebanon needs to recover its sovereignty and independence,” he said. “You can’t reach this goal without obtaining the withdrawal of the Palestinians, the Syrians and the Israelis from Lebanon.”

The interview was Gemayel’s first with a U.S. television network since being sworn into office last week to succeed Elias Sarkis to a six-year term. Gemayel, a member of the Christian Phalangist Party, was elected after his younger brother Bashir was killed along with 25 other Phalangist Party members in an explosion in the party head-quarters in east Beirut just days before Bashir was to be sworn into office as the new President of Lebanon.

The Lebanese President, in the televised interview from Beirut, said it was still too early to discuss a peace treaty with Israel because such an agreement would first have to be discussed among Lebanese government officials and then approved by the Lebanese Parliament. “But what I can assure you is that I am for real peace,” Gemayel said. “We need to reach a real peace, not an artificial peace.”

In a related development, President Reagan was urged to cut off military and economic aid to Israel by leading officials of the United Presbyterian Church as a demonstration of the Administration’s concern over Israeli government policies in Lebanon.

In a letter to Reagan sent by James Costen, moderator of the Church’s General Assembly, and its stated clerk, William Thompson, the officials urged the President “to take the necessary actions to half military and economic aid to Israel until such a time as the government of Israel is prepared to withdraw not just from west Beirut but from all of Lebanon and to start meaningful negotiations for a diplomatic solution to the problems of the area.”