The thorny issue of who will represent the Palestinians in peace talks with Israel appears to be moving toward a successful resolution, despite the tough rhetoric emanating from some Palestinian leaders in recent days.
A team of Middle East experts from the U.S. State Department and the National Security Council is due here Monday to hammer out a memorandum of understanding with local Palestinian leaders on several issues of concern to them.
The expectation is that the assurances contained in the memorandum will give the Pales- tinians the “political cover” they need to join the proposed Middle East peace conference without appearing to have conceded any ground to the Israeli government.
Israel has insisted that the Palestinian negotiating delegation include residents of only the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestinians from East Jerusalem or those connected in any way with the Palestine Liberation Organization would be barred.
The United States has quietly backed Israel’s insistence on such conditions, but Palestinians have balked at the idea that anyone other than themselves should determine who should and should not represent the Palestinians in peace talks.
American and Jordanian officials have urged the Palestinians, in effect, to swallow their pride and join a process that is likely to benefit them more than any other single party, especially in view of the PLO’s diminished international standing in the wake of the Persian Gulf War.
PLO SAYS IT WON’T IMPOSE OBSTACLES
While the Palestinians believe firmly that they should be able to include representatives of East Jerusalem in their delegation, they also do not want to be the party responsible for preventing a peace conference that has already won the approval of Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Israel.
According to reports from Tunis, the PLO made it clear Sunday that it would not stand in the way of a peace conference.
Although the PLO continued to insist on certain conditions before it could authorize Palestinian participation, spokesman Bassam Abu-Sharif said he was confident that in the end, the necessary formulas for peace talks would be found.
U.S. Secretary of State James Baker was in North Africa over the weekend seeking wider Arab support for the proposed peace conference. It is believed he asked the leaders of Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria to persuade the PLO to allow Palestinian participation in the conference.
Baker spent five hours Sunday in Tunis, where the PLO is headquartered, but did not meet with any PLO officials, in conformity with U.S. law.
But PLO chief Yasir Arafat was reported to be hopscotching the Maghreb countries one step before Baker for each rendezvous.
The secretary’s mission followed a meeting here Friday with three Palestinian leaders: Faisal Husseini, Hanan Ashrawi and Zakariya al-Agha. The four-hour meeting, the longest ever held between the two parties, concluded “affirmatively,” according to Palestinian sources.
U.S. SWITCH ON STATEHOOD?
Ashrawi, a professor of English at Bir-Zeit University in the West Bank, refused to comment on the question of Palestinian representation in remarks to reporters after the meeting. But she did outline what she believed would be included in the memorandum of understanding to be drafted by U.S. officials here Monday.
The document will include U.S. guarantees for implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, calling for exchange of territories for peace, and U.S. recognition of the Palestinians’ right of self-determination, including the right to an independent Palestinian state, she said.
But Israeli political observers ruled out the possibility the Americans would make any bold new commitments, such as recognition of the right to a Palestinian state. The Israelis say the memorandum will at best reaffirm statements made in the past endorsing the rights of the Palestinians to join in determining their own future.
Israeli observers said Ashrawi’s comments seemed more an effort to please local Palestinian public opinion than a reflection of any actual understandings reached with the Americans.
So precarious are the positions of the Palestinian leaders with whom Baker met that, following Friday’s meeting, Moslem fundamentalists in Gaza made death threats against Husseini.
The Islamic Jihad group distributed a leaflet over the weekend threatening Husseini with the same end as the late King Abdullah of Jordan, King Hussein’s grandfather, who was shot to death on the Temple Mount in 1951, following peace negotiations with Israel.
Husseini and Ashrawi left Saturday for a brief visit to Britain and possibly France, to try to rally support for the Palestinian position.
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