Deportees snub Israel's appeal offer

'THERE is no next move.' This was the government spokesman's verdict on yesterday's abortive attempt to persuade the Palestinian deportees stranded in no man's land to accept Israel's latest offer: a post-facto appeal from exile for Israeli justice.

After the Supreme Court ruling on Wednesday, which decided that the deportations could stand as long as there was now - six weeks after the event - a right of appeal, the authorities yesterday sent an army officer to the Zemraya crossing point, two miles south of the Palestinians' camp, to meet a representative of the deportees and collect a list of the appellants.

But nobody turned up. The offer to appear in person before a Defence Department committee, set up somewhere in the windswept hills of Israel's so-called 'security zone' in south Lebanon, was one they all found easy to refuse.

The stalemate over the deportees now resumes as all sides wait to see whether the new American President, Bill Clinton, will take a tough line with Israel in the United Nations Security Council. The Council, which has already called for the deportees' immediate return, is expected to meet next week to debate the possibility of a resolution on imposing sanctions.

In the meantime, Yitzhak Rabin, the Prime Minister, has taken the surprise decision to order a new internal review of the cases, despite the court ruling that each case is now legal. Mr Rabin may be holding out the chance of a more flexible attitude to please Mr Clinton. But he also may have finally decided to find out exactly whom he has exiled to no-man's land.

There is still no accurate published list of who the deportees are, say defence lawyers. Not even the Supreme Court judges, who declared the deportations legal, could possibly have know exactly whose fate they held in their hands. According to the Israeli human rights group B'tselem, there is even a deportee whose name appears on one list who states his place of residence as 'British Isles'. On the same list, one states his place of residence as 'Israel'.

'I know nothing about a deportee from the British Isles,' said Oded Ben-Ami, the government spokesman. 'But you might check with the Defence Department.'

For there are many lists: the list of 486 who first received deportation orders and the list of 413 (or is it 415 or 412?) who are still out there. There is the list of 35 who were taken off the buses at the last minute; the list of later mistakes; the Defence Department list, the Red Cross list, the Supreme Court list. None of them match up, the lawyers say.

For example, Mahmoud Sulieman Mohammed Baroud appears on three separate lists: on one list of deportees exiled for 18 months; another list of those exiled for two years and on a list of those whose deportation has been cancelled altogether.

Yizhar Beer, director of B'tselem, describes the episode as 'embarrassing, disgraceful, incompetent and evil'. He adds: 'But what can you expect if hundreds of people are rounded up in the middle of the night.'