Rabin Urges Talks with Arabs in Territories, but Not the PLO

With the end of the fighting in the Persian Gulf, it is time for Israel to take the initiative and begin direct negotiations with Palestinians in the administered territories, former Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin said here Monday.

Rabin, the second-ranking Knesset member in the opposition Labor Party, suggested the Palestinians be allowed to run their own affairs save for foreign policy, security and issues concerning Jewish settlements, “without giving back one inch in terms of our control over the territories.”

This would allow Israel to judge to what extent “this Palestinian entity will be the kind that will be ready to go to peace, without committing ourselves to any end solution,” Rabin said during an address here to American Friends of Bar-Ilan University.

He also dismissed the so-called Jordanian option, now being promoted by Labor party leader Shimon Peres, in which a joint Jordanian-Palestinian negotiating team would be sought. Without referring to Peres’ plan, Rabin said Jordan had made it clear it did not want to speak for the Palestinians.

“It’s inconceivable to me that the 1.6 million Palestinians in the territories will not be a partner and party to the peace process, because without them (we) can’t find a solution,” he said.

He suggested Israel renew its May 1989 peace initiative, which proposed elections in the territories to pick Palestinians who would negotiate for limited autonomy with Israel.

‘A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY’ FOR PEACE

Rabin helped draft the May 1989 peace initiative as a key member of the Cabinet at the time. That peace plan, along with the Labor-Likud unity government, collapsed a year later when the Israeli Cabinet deadlocked on a U.S. proposal to hold preliminary talks in Cairo between Israeli and Palestinian representatives on how to implement the elections plan.

Since then, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and his Likud bloc have insisted the plan is still alive, but they have placed more emphasis on normalizing relations with Israel’s Arab neighbors.

While Rabin favors talks with the Palestinians, he ruled out any role for the Palestine Liberation Organization, saying the PLO had been thoroughly discredited for supporting Iraq in the Gulf war.

Calling PLO leader Yasir Arafat and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein the two main obstacles to peace, Rabin said the Iraqi military defeat at the hands of the U.S.-led alliance had created unique opportunities in the Middle East.

“Even (with) the outburst of hatred to Israel that the Scuds brought to the Arab masses and the Palestinians, I believe it will be a unique opportunity” for peace, he said.

Referring to comments made recently by Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy, Rabin said he, too, would speak to Palestinians in the territories, “regardless of the shouts of joy of the Palestinians who were standing on roofs in the territories” as Iraqi missiles exploded in Tel Aviv.

Without Palestinian participation, “there can’t be a solution,” he said, reiterating there is no room in the negotiations for the “PLO gang from Tunis.”