U.S. Expresses Concern Terrorist Groups Will Not Accept Cease-fire

The State Department, in a rare assertion of condemnation of any Arab grouping, assailed today a key element of the Palestine Liberation Organization for its refusal to abide by the cease-fire arranged in southern Lebanon.

“We are gratified that the situation is calming down,” spokesman John Trattner said in a prepared statement, “but we view with concern acts and statements we have seen reported by the so-called Palestinian Rejectionists who say they oppose the cease-fire. We strongly condemn such attacks.”

He said the U.S. “basic objective” is to achieve “a true stability in the area and to extending the authority of the government” of Lebanese President Elias Sarkis in the area adjoining northern Israel. Trattner acknowledged that an Israeli force had returned from Lebanon. When he was asked what “legal position” it had there, he pointed out “the important thing in all this is that the fighting has died down.” He also said he had “some factual doubt” that the rejectionists include the PLO. He did not answer the question of legality of either the Israeli or the Palestinian forces in Lebanon.

A dispatch from Beirut received here quoted a PLO spokesman as saying that the cease-fire could take place with the “isolationists” but not with the “Zionist enemy.” The “isolationists” is the name now being given by Arab propagandists to mask the fact that Christians are being assaulted by the Palestinians in Lebanon and that Israel is helping the Christians to maintain their rights in Lebanon against the Palestinian forces.

The Radical Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) which has rejected the cease-fire is a member group in the PLO.