Despite Denials, Israel and PLO Are Increasing Indirect Contacts

Despite denials by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, there appears to be increasing evidence of indirect contacts between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israeli officials.

In fact, Shamir himself was briefed Sunday by Vice Premier Shimon Peres on messages from the PLO conveyed by a Soviet envoy to Peres’ adviser, Nimrod Novik.

Novik had met a week before in Paris with Gennady Terrasov, director of the Soviet Foreign Ministry’s Middle East department. Terrasov had come from Tunis, where he met with PLO leaders.

The latest reported indirect contacts with the PLO have involved Deputy Finance Minister Yossi Beilin, who, like Novik, is a Labor Party member with dovish views and close ties to Peres.

Beilin initiated a meeting Sunday with Palestinian activist Faisal Husseini, who is considered a senior contact for Al Fatah, the wing of the PLO controlled by Yasir Arafat. Husseini was released from administrative detention in Israel several months ago.

Husseini is rumored to have acted as a go-between for Israel and the PLO, and to have played a key role in the reopening of schools in the West Bank last week by convincing the PLO to approve the move.

On the same day that Husseini’s meeting with Beilin was scheduled to take place, Gen. Amram Mitzna, head of the Israel Defense Force’s central command, extended an order closing the Institute for Arab Studies in East Jerusalem, which Husseini runs.

DUTCH MEDIATION FAILS

Authorities first shut down the institute last year, claiming that it served as a center for subversive activities. They have now extended the closure for another year.

Husseini claims that the institute is purely an academic organization and has vowed to-continue his activities.

Meanwhile, a Dutch effort to bring the PLO and Israel closer together was shelved Sunday.

As part of an effort to produce a memorandum of understanding between Labor Party doves and PLO leaders, former Dutch Foreign Minister Max van der Stoel had been scheduled to meet with Beilin.

But with insufficient support for the document from both the PLO and the Israelis, the Dutch decided to put it aside.

The memo was to have included these points:

Recognition of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination;

Agreement to reach a settlement in stages, with linkage between the interim and final settlements and without rejecting any options;

Settlement of the refugee problem;

Guarantee of Israel’s security;

Support for U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, which call for the Israeli return of land in exchange for peace;

Prevention of terror in all forms; and

Agreement to elections in the territories as an important step in the process.

Van der Stoel also failed in his attempt to arrange a meeting at the end of June between Beilin and Abdullah Hourani, a member of the PLO Executive, who were in Holland at the time.