State Department spokesman Charles Redman said Monday that the United States welcomes the recent reduction in violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
“Overall, we have seen a general lessening of violence and that we welcome,” the spokesman said.
Redman faced a flurry of questions at the daily briefing on Israel’s decision Sunday to deport nine Palestinians, the killing of a Palestinian woman in the territories by Israeli soldiers and Israel’s weekend air raid on terrorist targets in southern Lebanon.
Commenting on the deportations, Redman said “Israeli leaders are well aware of our views.” The State Department has frequently mentioned that it objects to deportation of Palestinians. He noted that “there is a judicial appeal process that is apparently still involved in these cases.”
On Sunday, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres defended the deportations while speaking on ABC’s “This Week with David Brinkley.” Peres said that Israel was following Jordanian law when it deported the Palestinians.
Peres explained that since Israel does not use capital punishment, “the most we can do is to deport in accordance with the law.” He stated that “the Jordanian law is the prevailing law on the West Bank.”
Peres also noted that last weekend passed by “in a quiet manner” in the territories, although he said he regretted Sunday morning’s killing of the Palestinian woman. (See related story.)
In explaining the event, he said “some Israeli soldiers were ambushed by masked Palestinians, and one of them was isolated.” Then, in self-defense, one of the Israeli soldiers “fired in there and apparently the cartridge . . . hit the woman.”
SOLDIERS SUSPENDED
Peres said the army’s regional commander did not accept this explanation and, as a result, the unit commander and other soldiers have been suspended, Peres said.
Redman confirmed Monday that “the government of Israel has expressed its regret and has suspended soldiers and the company commander involved, pending an investigation by Israeli authorities.”
He also expressed sympathy for any “innocent victims” of Sunday’s Israeli air strike in southern Lebanon.
But he added that the attacks “also demonstrate vividly the importance of security for Israel’s northern frontier and stability in southern Lebanon. Those can only be brought about through a process of political reconciliation among Lebanon’s warring factions.”
On Sunday, Peres was asked whether real progress in the peace process possible since many Israeli leaders oppose returning land seized during the Six-Day War of 1967.
He responded, “I don’t think that we have to divide Jerusalem. And I don’t think we have to return to the 1967 frontiers.”
Peres said he believes that “the negotiation will result in some solution that nobody has suggested until now.”
OTHER SOLUTIONS POSSIBLE
He explained that “in addition to the partition of the land, you can have other solutions, like a federation, a confederation, sharing the government, a transitional period.”
He said the emphasis should first be to “open a negotiation between equals, with full respect, with good faith–to look for a solution.”
He repeated his support for an international peace conference, as long as it does not impose a solution and leads to direct negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis.
Peres recalled that Israel, Egypt, the Soviet Union and the United States participated in such a conference in 1973, which preceded direct talks between Israel and Egypt, culminating in the Camp David Accords in the late 1970s. “The taste of the pudding is in its eating,” he quipped.
Earlier on Sunday’s show, two U.S. Jewish leaders discussed Israel’s use of live ammunition, as well as peace prospects.
Rabbi Alexander Schindler, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, recently wrote in the New York Times that rioting in the territories should “shock” the Israeli government and that the status quo in the territories “corrodes the Jewish and democratic character” of Israel.
Schindler was more tempered in his criticism Sunday, stating only that “there is a recognition that there is a danger of using excessive force.”
‘EXCESSIVE FORCE’
The State Department has repeatedly criticized Israel in recent weeks for using “excessive force” and, particularly, for using live ammunition against Palestinian rioters.
The department’s forceful statements on the subject disturbed several American Jewish leaders. A delegation of the leaders, led by Morris Abram, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, met Dec. 24 with Deputy Secretary of State John Whitehead to express their concerns.
Abram was asked on Sunday’s program to address the administration’s concern over Israel’s use of lethal force.
He asserted that “Israel uses live ammunition as a last resort” although “there have been some miscarriages of the usage of live ammunition.” He said that General Yitzhak Mordechai, head of the Israel Defense Force southern command, is punishing and disciplining soldiers “who do that.”
Abram said that “during the last several days new riot equipment has been given to the Israeli soldiers” as well as rubber bullets.
Sunday’s show also featured Columbia University Professor Edward Said, who is a member of the Palestine National Council, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s policy-making body. He praised Palestinian resistance by stating “this is the right of all occupied people–to resist military occupation.”
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