Bush Administration is Assuming Israeli Peace Plan is Still Intact

The Bush administration believes that the Israeli government is still committed to its original peace initiative, without the conditions set by Likud last week, a senior State Department official said Wednesday.

“We are still operating on the basis that the government of Israel’s May 14 proposal” for Palestinian elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip “is the operative and legally binding basis for the Israeli government to proceed,” John Kelly, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, told a congressional panel.

Kelly was referring to the endorsement by the Israeli Cabinet of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s peace initiative, which proposes, among other things, elections in which the Palestinians in the territories would select representatives for peace talks with Israel.

The United States has supported the initiative since Shamir unveiled it to Bush at the White House in March.

Making his first appearance since confirmation to the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East, Kelly repeatedly referred to the Cabinet decision when asked about Shamir’s acceptance of the Likud conditions.

NO U.S. PRESSURE ON LABOR PARTY

He spent nearly three hours before the committee trying to play down the importance of a high-level delegation Secretary of State James Baker is sending to Israel next week.

Baker said Monday that the purpose of the mission is to find out if Israel is still serious about the election proposal, following Shamir’s acceptance of conditions demanded by the right wing of his party.

Those conditions rule out territorial compromise, call for additional settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, bar Arab residents of East Jerusalem from taking part in the proposed elections and prevent the elections from taking place until the Palestinian uprising ends completely.

Kelly admitted the Likud conditions would be an impediment to the Palestinians accepting the election proposal. He said the reason the State Department officials are going to Israel is to “have an exchange with the members of the Israeli government about the peace process” and its prospects for success.

But Kelly repeatedly denied published reports that the U.S. delegation will seek to persuade the Labor Party not to leave the government coalition because of the Likud move.

“It is not up to us to try to stage-manage the election process in Israel,” he said.

During the hearing, the Bush administration came under constant criticism from several pro-Israel committee members for, as Rep. Lawrence Smith (D-Fla.) put it, “beating Israel over the head” in recent months.

Committee members criticized Baker for hinting the United States might consider an international peace conference if the election proposal failed.

STATE DEPARTMENT ‘DIDDLING’ CRITICIZED

Kelly replied that the United States has been arguing with the Europeans, the Soviet Union and the Arabs that “negotiations between the Palestinians in the territories and Israel is the way to go.”

But he said the United States has never ruled out that an international conference might be worthwhile at some future date, under proper conditions.

When pressed, Kelly defended recent U.S. contacts with members of the Palestine Liberation Organization, such as Salah Khalaf, who are alleged to have been involved in past terrorist attacks.

He said that trying to persuade the PLO to allow Palestinians in the territories to negotiate with Israel requires such contacts.

Kelly stressed that there is no intention to have talks with PLO representatives anywhere but Tunis or to have anyone conduct them but the U.S. ambassador to Tunisia, Robert Pelletreau.

Several committee members criticized the U.S.-PLO dialogue for not gaining anything for the United States. Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) cited 11 terrorist incidents since the talks began last December.

Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) said it took nearly a week for the State Department to label as terrorism the incident in which a Palestinian grabbed the steering wheel of a bus, causing it to go over an embankment, killing 14 Israelis.

He said Radio Moscow denounced it as terrorism immediately “while the State Department was diddling about trying to get answers.”