U.S. Administration Suspends Dialogue With Arafat’s PLO
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It is difficult to understand the omissions in The Times’ coverage of President Bush’s decision to end talks with the Palestine Liberation Organization (front page, June 21). Your story did not mention that the U.S. cut off the dialogue because the PLO did not live up to the dialogue agreement.
In 1988, when the Reagan Administration opened the dialogue, U.N. Ambassador Thomas Pickering made clear that there were conditions to the continuation of the talks. “In the event of a terrorist action by any element of the PLO, we expect that you not only condemn this action publicly, but also discipline those responsible for it, at least expelling them from the PLO.”
When the PLO failed to speak out against the May 30 beach attacks in Tel Aviv or reprimand Abul Abbas, the Palestine Liberation Front mastermind, the Bush Administration simply acted on previously articulated policy.
Your coverage was misleading in that it made Abbas seem like a PLO outsider by referring to the PLF as a “splinter group.” The PLF has never separated itself from the PLO; in fact, Abbas, who was also responsible for the death of American Leon Klinghoffer, holds a seat on the elite PLO executive committee.
ANDREW CUSHNIR
Assistant Director
Anti-Defamation League
Los Angeles
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