Palestinian Leader Says PLO Will Never Recognize Israel; Says Reagan Initiative is a ‘zionist Plan’

A Palestinian leader said today that the Palestine Liberation Organization “will never recognize Israel.” Ibrahim Suss, the PLO representative in Paris, said on French television, “The priority for us is the creation of a Palestinian state. It is the state which will then, later, decide whom it wishes to recognize.”

Addressing a mass rally last night, Suss said the PLO’s Central Council, at its meeting in Damascus last weekend, had “categorically rejected” President Reagan’s Middle East peace plan “because it is a Zionist plan contrary to Palestinian and Arab interests.” (In Washington yesterday a State Department spokesman insisted the PLO’s Central Council had not in fact rejected the Reagan plan outright.)

The rally Suss addressed was attended by more than 1,000 people and was held to mark the international “Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.” Among those attending were representatives of the Communist Party and of Communist-oriented labor unions. The Socialist Party was not represented.

Suss rejected an appeal by the Communist dominated CGT trade union for talks between the PLO and certain Israeli democratic groups. “How can one talk to us about Israeli democracy when Palestinian blood in Beirut is not yet dry? Such a suggestion is a scandal,” Suss declared.

(Meanwhile, at the United Nations today, the General Assembly opened its debate on the question of Palestine. Farouk Kaddoumi, who is considered to be the PLO “foreign secretary,” reiterated his organization’s views that the solution to the Palestinian problem will not be found unless an independent Palestinian state is established. He also said that Israel must withdraw from all “occupied Palestinian and Arab territories.”)