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- WORLD, Page 41World NotesMIDDLE EASTPiecemeal Peace
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- The Middle East is never short of peace plans, only of peace.
- Last week both the Israeli government and Palestinian groups were
- engaged in heated internal discussions over the latest proposal for
- holding elections in the occupied territories. Forwarded by
- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the plan loosely parallels an
- election scheme put forth last April by Israeli Prime Minister
- Yitzhak Shamir. But Mubarak's version includes some provisions that
- the Israeli leader has already rejected, including the
- participation of Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the exchange
- of land for peace.
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- West Bank leaders and the Palestine Liberation Organization
- were debating whether Mubarak's deliberate omission of any
- reference to an eventual Palestinian state was too much of a sop
- to Israeli sensibilities to warrant acceptance. They are also
- concerned because the P.L.O. is excluded from direct participation.
- For their part, four senior Cabinet officials could not even agree
- whether to acknowledge the Egyptian proposal, since doing so would
- in effect admit that the Shamir plan had been supplanted. Insisting
- his own initiative must be answered first, Shamir's dour response
- to Egypt: You agree to the principles of our plan, then we can
- discuss yours.