Behind the Headlines Clearing the Palestinian Hurdle

Who will speak for the Palestinians at Geneva is a question that is rapidly becoming the key to future events in the Middle East. Almost all of the prime movers in the Middle East drama have expressed the hope that 1977 will see real progress toward peace and, more specifically, that the Geneva conference will reconvene later in the year.

U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, on a six-day tour of the area last month, affirmed at every step that this was Washington’s aim and desire. UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim subscribed to the same scenario. Israeli and Arab leaders have each voiced their own hope, too, that Geneva will resume in the autumn. But the one obstacle presently blocking this universal hope from becoming reality is the problem of Palestinian representation.

The situation on the face of it seems hopelessly deadlocked. The Arabs stand by the position they adopted at their Rabat summit conference in 1974–that the PLO is the “sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.” They refuse to go back to Geneva unless the Palestinians are represented there by the PLO. Israel refuses to negotiate with the PLO, terming it a terrorist organization whose “Palestine National Covenant” calls in effect for the dissolution of the Jewish State.

The U.S. backs the Israeli refusal so long as the PLO does not alter its “National Covenant,” does not recognize Israel, and does not accept Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, the basis for the Geneva conference. The PLO has made no official move to alter its “Covenant” or to recognize Israel. Beneath the surface, though, there seem to be sufficient signs of shifts on all sides to give the would-be mediator Vance grounds for his hopes and reason to continue working and planning.

ADVOCATES OF REAPPRAISING PLO

First, on the Israeli side, while the official position on the PLO–a flat and unequivocal no–has been unchanging for years, there are significant groups within the political community who advocate a reappraisal. These groups are no longer confined to the periphery. There are ministers in Yitzhak Rabin’s coalition–the Independent Liberal Party’s Moshe Kol and Mapam’s Victor Shemtov–and important members of his own Labor Party such as the chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs Committee, Yitzhak Navon, who urge a change in the government formula from “never” to “not until.”

Instead of saying that Israel will never negotiate with the PLO because it stands for Israel’s destruction, these people urge the government to say that Israel will negotiate with any Palestinian group that does not demand Israel’s destruction.

Meetings in Paris between left-winger Gen. Matityahu (Matti) Peled and PLO leaders were watched by government officials with frank and open interest. But with Rabin’s Labor-led government constantly looking over its shoulder in this pre-election period at the right-wing Likud opposition, no change in official dogma can be expected until the May 17 polling day. But the elections could create a political climate more favorable to an Israeli re-thinking on the Palestinian question.

The Palestinian issue is too complex to be resolved merely by a shift in formula or nuance. Fundamentally its solution depends on the willingness of both sides–Israelis and Palestinians — to recognize the other’s right to independent national existence. For Israel that means in practice acquiescing in the creation of a Palestinian state on the West Bank of the Jordan and the Gaza Strip.

FEAR OF A PLO-RULED STATE

While many world statesmen, among them long-time friends of Israel, believe that this is ultimately the only solution, most Israelis–doves as well as hawks–have always regarded the idea as a recipe for national annihilation. A small Palestinian (PLO-ruled) state, they say, would inevitably become a base for a Soviet military presence in the area; it would be constantly seeking to expand at Israel’s expense; and would therefore make security for Israel untenable and life there intolerable.

Israel, therefore, has always insisted on a solution to the Palestinian problem “within the framework of Jordan.” In other words, the Palestinians should make their peace with Jordan’s King Hussein–or, in the view of some Israelis such as Gen. Ariel Sharon, overthrow him–and have their homeland in a single “Jordanian-Palestinian state.”

Until now, the idea has seemed unrealistic. Hussein and the PLO have been at daggers-point since “Black September” 1970 when the King put a bloody end to the PLO presence in his land. In 1974, the Arab rulers vested in the PLO, not in the King, the right to represent the West Bank and Gaza Palestinians.

NOISES IN THE ARAB CAMP

But now there are noises within, the Arab camp itself indicating a possible change and these have doubtless bolstered Washington’s peace hopes. Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat has spoken publicly of the need for Jordan-PLO coordination before the Geneva conference resumes. Both he and Syria’s President Hafez Assad have several times referred to the need for close coordination between Hussein’s Jordan and the PLO-ruled state they hope to see set up on the West Bank and Gaza.

This is a far cry from the 1974 summit resolutions. It smacks rather of a longstanding proposal by King Hussein for a federation between his kingdom and a future Palestinian state, a proposal long derided in Arab political circles but now gaining new respect. Hussein’s proposal, though officially rejected by Israel, has nevertheless always been regarded with interest here as the possible basis for further negotiations.

The PLO itself has been largely negative. But the PLO is not entirely master in its own house and therein lies a cause for Vance’s optimism. The PLO always was a creature of the Arab states, susceptible to pressures from them and this is now even more the case following its severe military and political setbacks in the Lebanese civil war.

If Syria and Egypt, spurred on by the oil-potent Saudi Arabia, insist on a moderation of the PLO’s aims and ideology and an accommodation with Hussein’s Jordan, PLO chairman Yasir Arafat can scarcely remain obdurate. It will be Vance’s chief purpose in the months ahead to induce the Arab states to exert the kind of pressure on Arafat to achieve such moderation.