ISRAEL COMPROMISES ON DEPORTEES' FATE; ARABS UNIMPRESSED

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

DATE: TUESDAY, February 2, 1993                   TAG: 9302020222
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: From The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: UNITED NATIONS                                LENGTH: Medium
ISRAEL COMPROMISES ON DEPORTEES' FATE; ARABS UNIMPRESSED
Israel announced Monday that it will permit the return of 100 of the remaining 396 Palestinians it deported to Lebanon and would take back the others before the end of this year.
U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, moving to defuse a potential diplomatic crisis for the Clinton administration, indicated that the United States would block any further attempt by the U.N. Security Council to condemn Israel over the issue.
Christopher said the United States accepted the concession by the government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin as representing compliance with a Security Council resolution calling for the return of all the Palestinians, who have been stranded in a desolate no man's land in southern Lebanon since they were forcibly transported there on Dec. 17.
U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali last week called for Security Council action against Israel if it did not comply with the U.N. resolution, prompting the new Clinton administration to press Israel for concessions that would allow Washington to avoid having to veto Security Council action while pressing for enforcement of U.N. resolutions against Iraq and Serbia.
Rabin's offer was quickly rejected by Palestinians. Hanan Ashrawi, spokeswoman for the Palestinian delegation to the peace talks, said the proposal "very clearly . . . does not comply with international law [and] we cannot be party to any deal or compromise" that would permit Israel to continue deportations.
There was no comment on the offer from the deportees themselves, who have had no official access to food, clothing and medicine - let alone telephones - since they were expelled by Israeli defense forces on Dec. 17. But most indicated in recent interviews that they would not accept any offer short of the repatriation of all of them at once.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB