Americans Challenge Dole Bill

By Richard Curtiss

A delegation of 17 Americans active in Middle East affairs met August 21 with Assistant Secretary of State Richard Murphy and officials of the State Department's Bureau of Near East and South Asian Affairs and legal adviser's office to discuss implications of the anti-terrorism act of 1987, pending in the Senate, to close the Palestine Liberation Organization Observer Mission to the United Nations in New York and the Palestine Information Office in Washington, DC.

The delegation, consisting of leaders of Jewish peace groups and directors of educational and relief organizations, many of them former high-ranking US government officials, was organized by Andrew I. Killgore, former US Ambassador to Qatar and president of the American Educational Trust. Speaking for the group, Washington attorney Merle Thorpe, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, raised four concerns:

• Passage of the bill would adversely affect a multitude of US relief and educational activities in Israeli-occupied territories, as well as US relations with all friendly Arab governments;

• It would undercut peace initiatives presently being pursued by various Israeli political parties and organizations and closely-related activities within the American Jewish community;

• It would discourage moderates within the PLO and vindicate radicals who argue against negotiations or accommodation with either the US or Israel;

• It would stifle an exchange of information, guaranteed Americans by the first amendment to the Constitution, essential to a negotiated Middle East peace.

In subsequent discussions, individual delegates noted than an overwhelming majority of Palestinians inside and outside the occupied territories has selected the PLO to represent them. Rejecting dialogue with their chosen representatives would justify Palestinian radicals in resorting to terrorism against Americans anywhere. Delegates added that closing the Palestine Information Office in Washington by executive action would be even worse than having the Senate pass the bill, as it would send the wrong signal to moderates in both Israel and the Arab world about the determination of the US government to surmount domestic politics in matters pertaining to a negotiated Middle East peace.

The group asked, in view of the drawbacks it had listed, for Murphy to explain any offsetting benefits to the US of such legislation.

Responding, Murphy listed a number of concerns the US has with the PLO including: its inability during two years of negotiations to reach an agreed position with King Hussein of Jordan vis-a-vis peace negotiations with Israel; the continuing presence of Palestine Liberation Front leader Abul Abbas, accused of complicity in the hijacking of the Achille Lauro, on the PLO Executive Committee; and readmission into the PLO of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a leader of which has claimed responsibility for the March 1985, assassination of Nablus Mayor Zafer Al Masri.

"However," Murphy told the group, "we don't think legislation is the right way to express our concerns." The State Department believes, he said, that closing of the observer mission would be a violation of US treaty obligations. If the United Nations took the question to the World Court, Murphy predicted, "we would lose."

The State Department feels, however, that closure of the Palestine Information Office, the Washington-based information office of a foreign entity, does not violate first amendment rights of Americans. Murphy said the office's American staff would be free to reopen it as an American institution, but it would have to find US rather than foreign funding.

Killgore and Thorpe asked Murphy for a similar meeting with Secretary of State George Shultz. Other members of the group included: James E. Akins, former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and former director of the State Department's office of fuels and energy; Elias Barsoum, former Department of State Middle East specialist; Former Assistant Secretary of State Lucius Battle, president of the Middle East Institute; Rabbi Elmer Berger, president of American Jewish Alternatives to Zionism; Richard Curtiss, a former US Information Agency officer and currently editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs; Dr. John H. Davis, former Commissioner General of the United Nations Refugee Works Agency and a former assistant secretary of agriculture; John N. Gatch, former deputy director of the State Department's office of terrorism; Peter Gubser, president of Near East Refugee Aid; Prof. Thomas Mallison, director of the international and comparative law program at George Washington University; Orin Parker, president of AMIDEAST; Talcott W. Seelye, former ambassador to Syria and to Tunisia; Jerome Segal and Ellen Siegel, both of Washington Area Jews for an Israeli-Palestinian Peace; Hilda Silverman of New Jewish Agenda's Middle East Task Force; and Washington attorney Marhsall Wiley, former US Ambassador to the Sultanate of Oman.

Segal and Silverman described conversations they held with PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat in Tunis where, as representatives of their American Jewish groups, they met a number of the PLO Executive Committee members.

"Arafat is the leader of the only organization that can bring about a peace settlement, and he says he is interested in negotiations based upon land for peace," Segal told Murphy. "It seems to me that's what we've been saying for 40 years. Therefore, closing the PLO offices seems to be exactly the wrong thing to do. It vindicates those within the PLO who say there's no point in trying to work with the United States."

Seelye reminded the State Department officials that when he was directing an evacuation of American citizens from West Beirut in July 1976, the PLO provided security for the operation and also provided him with personal security for the six weeks he directed the US Embassy in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war.

"The thrust of this legislation is to cut off the flow of ideas," Wiley said. "It is a very negative move by the United States government and quite contrary to my understanding of what our government is all about."

"If I were trying to devise a way to obstruct peace," said Davis, a veteran of 50 years in national and international affairs, "I could not find a way more effective than this proposed legislation."