
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, June 21, 1990                   TAG: 9006210515
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/6   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: RUTH SINAI ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

PLO BREAK MAY SPUR TERRORISM

In punishing the Palestine Liberation Organization for violence, the United States may have opened the door to even more violence. Even President Bush recognized that irony when he announced his decision to suspend the 18-month U.S. dialogue with the PLO.

Bush said Wednesday that the United States must respond to the PLO's violation of its pledge to renounce terrorism - the magic words that led the Reagan administration in its waning days to lift a 13-year ban on direct talks with the PLO.

And Bush promised that as soon as the PLO condemns the thwarted May 30 attack by PLO guerrillas on Israel's coast, the United States will resume the talks.

Nonetheless, analysts agree the suspension of the talks has badly damaged the tentative results of the low-level dialogue conducted in virtual secrecy in Tunis, where the PLO has its headquarters.

"This will make the radicals, and all those who oppose peace, strong," said Faisal Husseini, one of the leading Palestinian nationalists in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Assistant Secretary of State John Kelly told a House panel Wednesday that cutting off dialogue with the PLO will harm the Middle East peace process, adding, "It may herald a period of time in which there is more violence and more terrorism."

Bush, asked whether he was worried about playing into the hands of PLO hard-liners, said, "Yes, I am concerned about that." And Secretary of State James Baker, who recommended the suspension, acknowledged it would hurt moderate Arabs.

The president said he recognized the frustration among Palestinians at the slow pace of the dialogue, but he cited achievements.

"On balance, we believe that these exchanges contributed to progress in the peace process," he said in announcing his decision. "I think things are better because we've had the dialogue."

Analysts say the dialogue proved to Americans that the PLO was the only representative of the Palestinian people and therefore vital to the success of Arab-Israeli peace talks. U.S. influence also got the PLO to accept negotiations with Israel.

"We were just starting to drive the demons out of each others' eyes," said Richard Murphy, the leading Mideast official in the Reagan administration.

For Palestinians, long shunned in the West as terrorists bent on the destruction of Israel, the dialogue provided a modicum of legitimacy.

And it showed Palestinians that U.S. foreign policy was not warped by its support for the Jewish state, Murphy said in an interview.

U.S. officials said last summer they were closer to arranging talks between Israel and the Palestinians than ever before.

The talks, to be held in Cairo, would have set up elections among the 1.7 million Palestinians under Israeli occupation.

by CNB