A Palestinian “peace plan” that Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin considers to have merit is being circulated here and in the United States.
It apparently originated with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, independent of the Palestine Liberation Organization, a point Rabin finds in its favor.
The defense minister told the Labor Party’s Knesset faction Wednesday that an Arab resident of Gaza left the day before for the United States to present to the Americans a plan acceptable to leading Palestinian figures in the territories.
He said the document had already been conveyed to the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv.
“Even if it is not exactly the Israeli government’s initiative,” Rabin said, it contains certain principles of the Israeli plan.
These are a two-stage process and Palestinian negotiators “without mentioning the PLO,” Rabin said.
According to Yediot Achronot, the Gaza resident to whom Rabin referred is Assad Saftawi, a PLO veteran who helped found Al Fatah, the fighting arm of the PLO controlled by Yasir Arafat.
The newspaper said Saftawi met secretly with Rabin several weeks ago and the two formulated a Palestinian peace plan. It said the defense minister has been trying to reach an agreement with the PLO through Saftawi.
Saftawi evidently left for Egypt to present the plan to PLO officials for their approval, Yediot Achronot said.
SHAMIR PLAN FACING HURDLE
Rabin, meanwhile, is continuing to promote the peace plan he devised with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.
It calls for, among other things, Palestinian elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, leading to an interim period of self-rule in the territories and negotiations on their final status.
Rabin told the Knesset on Wednesday that there are grounds to believe that if the Palestinians accept the election proposal, violence in the administered territories will decline.
He said, however, that there will always be Arab extremists who will terrorize other Arabs and Jews to try to sabotage the peace plan.
The plan faces a major hurdle on July 5, when the Likud Central Committee convenes in Tel Aviv. Likud hard-liner Ariel Sharon, who opposes the plan, is seeking a referendum on it. Shamir hopes to avoid a vote.
Sharon and other opponents in Likud want amendments ruling out participation in the elections by the Arabs of East Jerusalem and rejecting international supervision of the elections.
Shamir insists that no changes can be introduced by the Central Committee, since the plan has been approved by the Cabinet and by the Knesset as it stands.
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