Ponder Legal Action Against Israeli Editor Who Met Arafat in Beirut

Interior Minister Yosef Burg has asked the Attorney General for a legal opinion as to whether official action should be brought against former MK Uri Avneri who visited Palestine Liberation Organization chief Yasir Arafat for two hours last Friday and allegedly embraced the terrorist leader when they met.

Avneri, editor and publisher of the weekly magazine Hoolam Haze and a leader of the leftwing Sheli faction, said his meeting with Arafat was solely in his capacity as a journalist, therefore he had broken no law. Burg observed that reporters do not normally embrace in friendship people they interview. To do so was a sign of identification with Arafat and encouragement for his policies, Burg said. Government supporters are accusing Avneri of treason and demand he be brought to trial.

Meir Payil, another leader of Sheli, said Avneri had talked to Arafat as a journalist, not as a representative of the political faction. But Payil admitted that had he been in Avneri’s place he would have consulted with the government before seeing Arafat.

Avneri said Arafat told him that on several occasions he had been ready to recognize Israel. Victor Shemtov, leader of Mapam which strongly opposes the Likud government’s policies, remarked that if such had ever been Arafat’s intentions “it has evidently been kept a close secret from us or anybody else.”

Avneri, who spent a total of four hours in west Beirut, which is under siege by Israeli forces, said he found the PLO leader calm “but somewhat fatalistic.” He said Arafat told him he expected an Israeli attack on west Beirut and that his men were ready for it. Avneri said he spent some time with the only Israeli captured by the PLO during the three weeks of fighting in Lebanon — Air Force pilot Aharon Ahiaz. He said he found Ahiaz in “relatively good spirits.”