Israeli Cabinet Puts off Discussion of Talks with Plo, at Least for Now

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres has inched a step closer toward endorsing the idea of bringing the long-banned Palestine Liberation Organization into the peace process.

But Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin remains strongly opposed to a direct role for the Tunis-based organization and persuaded an unusual midweek Cabinet meeting to back away from raising the possibility for formal discussion.

For their part, the Palestinians indicated there was not much to talk about as long as Israel refused to allow 415 Moslem fundamentalists it expelled to Lebanon last week to return to the administered territories.

Palestinian officials in both Tunis and Jerusalem said the peace process had been dealt a “death blow” by the decision Tuesday of Israel’s High Court of Justice to reject appeals against the expulsion of the fundamentalists, who are members of the militant Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements.

But Israeli leaders expressed confidence that the peace talks would continue after the Jan. 20 inauguration of U.S. President-elect Bill Clinton.

Rabin told the Cabinet on Wednesday that when the bilateral talks resume in Washington, all of the Arab delegations will be there, including the Palestinians.

Peres cited statements by Egypt, Syria and Jordan that the talks should continue and urged the Palestinians not to withdraw. At a news conference for foreign journalists, he expressed hope elections in the territories could be held within four months.

At the same news conference, Peres rejected the idea of opening direct talks with the PLO, saying Israel already had a Palestinian negotiating partner.

But earlier, in a newspaper interview, the foreign minister said Israel should reconsider its criteria about whom it negotiates with. He said Jerusalem should agree to talk with any Palestinian individual or organization ready to reach a peace settlement.

“We should no longer make geographic or organizational distinctions between the Palestinians, as previous governments have done,” he told the daily Yediot Achronot.

The foreign minister said he favored recognizing as a legitimate negotiating partner Palestinian leader Faisal Husseini, until now disqualified primarily because he lives in East Jerusalem but also because of his close ties to the PLO. So long as Husseini does not join Hamas, he is an appropriate partner for discussions, Peres said.

The foreign minister’s statements represented a departure from the position traditionally held by Israel toward the PLO, which Rabin continues to back strongly.

The prime minister agreed, under pressure from his left-wing coalition partner, the Meretz bloc, to hold a special Cabinet discussion Wednesday on whether to go beyond talking to Palestinians who take their instructions from Tunis to sitting down with the PLO itself.

Rabin, who has stated that PLO chief Yasir Arafat is the main obstacle to a peace agreement, adamantly opposes opening the door to direct contacts with the PLO.

But a growing number of officials in his own party think otherwise. The most recent to back talks with the PLO was Tourism Minister Uzi Baram.

Immigrant Absorption Minister Yair Tsaban of Meretz argued Wednesday that Israel should tell the PLO that if it played “a constructive role” at the next round of peace talks, Jerusalem would reconsider its policy toward the group.

Health Minister Haim Ramon of Labor suggested that Rabin issue a renewed invitation to meet with the Palestinian delegation to the peace talks. The Palestinians have in the past declined on the grounds that only Arafat is authorized to represent them at that diplomatic level.

In Washington, meanwhile, the State Department expressed concern Wednesday about the welfare of the Palestinian deportees, who are stranded between Israeli and Lebanese army checkpoints in southern Lebanon, with neither side willing to admit them.

“We remain very disturbed by the situation, and I think our views on deportations are well known,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said at a news briefing.

The United States joined a U.N. Security Council resolution last Friday that strongly condemned the Israeli action.

Boucher said the U.S. government would “remain in touch with both the Israelis and the Lebanese on this matter.’

(Contributing to this report was JTA correspondent Deborah Kalb of States News Service in Washington.)