The New York Times · New York, New York · 16 November 1991

CP-1991-043

Palestinian Negotiator May Face Israel Charge

By CLYDE HABERMAN

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Transcribed from the clipping

JERUSALEM, Nov. 15 — The Israeli police recommended today that Hanan Ashrawi, the main voice of the Palestinians at the recent Middle East peace talks held in Madrid, be brought to trial for supposedly having met with officials of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Mrs.

Ashrawi, who rose to international prominence at the Madrid conference, denounced the action as “vindictive and petty,” and Jordan’s Foreign Minister, Kamel Abu Jaber, asked the United States and the Soviet Union to protect her from prosecution. It was far from clear that the Israeli Attorney General would in fact pursue an indictment against Mrs.

Ashrawi, a university professor who lives in the West Bank town of Ramallah, six miles north of Jerusalem. A Justice Ministry spokesman said only that prosecutors would study the police file, a procedure that could take weeks.

Liberal and left-wing critics of the Government said, however, that the case had already threatened to give Israel a public-relations black eye at a delicate moment, as it prepares to resume peace negotiations with its immediate Arab neighbors, including a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation. Mrs.

Ashrawi, in an interview at her Ramallah home on Thursday night, said that she, too, doubted that the Israeli authorities would press criminal charges against her at this delicate juncture. After the police action became known today, she said in a telephone conversation that she wanted to “wait and see” what the Justice Ministry would do.

But she added, “I refuse to be intimidated, and I refuse to be silenced.” At issue is a five-year-old statute banning contacts with the P.L.O., which is viewed by Palestinians as the agent of their national aspirations but is regarded by Israel as a terrorist group committed to this country’s destruction.

Early last month, Israel’s best-known peace campaigner, Abie Nathan, received a prison sentence of a year and a half for having defied the law by meeting with the P.L.O. chairman, Yasir Arafat. Two days later, Mrs.

Ashrawi and another Palestinian leader here, Faisal al-Husseini, were called in for police questioning on charges that they had met the P.L.O. leadership in Algiers. The Palestine National Council, which is the Palestinian legislature, convened in September in Algiers, where it endorsed the peace process, as Mr. Husseini and Mrs. Ashrawi had been urging.

Delegates told journalists that the two had appeared before the council to plead their case, but they both denied the reports, saying they were in London at the time. The police said there was not enough evidence to sustain criminal charges against Mr. Husseini, but, without elaborating, they said that Mrs. Ashrawi was another matter.

The Israeli radio reported that investigators were relying on an interview with Jordan Television in which she purportedly acknowledged having met P.L.O. officials.

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