The mood among Palestinians in the administered territories has shifted from a general aura of despair to one of jubilation with the return of 15 men whom Israel had deported years ago but allowed back last week.
The scenes this past weekend were reminiscent of the days of early November 1991, when the Palestinian negotiating delegation returned from the first round of Middle East peace talks in Madrid. At the time, there was such optimism that Palestinians danced in the streets and covered Israeli soldiers with olive branches.
The Palestinian leaders who returned to the West Bank last Friday, some of them unknown to the present generation, were carried on shoulders and hailed as heroes.
Peaceful demonstrations took place in the streets of the West Bank, with no interference by Israeli security forces. And buoyant residents once again spoke of a “Palestinian state around the corner.”
The Israeli offer to allow back a total of 30 Palestinians deported between 1967 and 1987, coinciding with the resumption of the peace talks in Washington, has given a much-needed boost to those within the Palestinian camp supporting the peace talks and aligned with the mainstream circles of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
The boost comes just in time for the propeace and pro-PLO forces, after months in which the influence and popularity of the rejectionist Islamic Hamas group appeared to be rising, triggered by the December deportation of 415 Islamic activists from the territories.
A mass rally in the West Bank city of Ramallah in honor of the 15 returnees featured the broadcast of a live telephone call by PLO leader Yasir Arafat directly from Tunis, blessing the returnees and declaring: “I already see the Palestinian state.”
The 15 Palestinians who crossed over the Allenby Bridge from Jordan into the West Bank are the first half of the group of 30 approved by Israel. The next 15 are expected to return soon.
Thousands awaited the deportees as they returned home. When the group crossed the Allenby Bridge and approached the passengers terminal close to Jericho, the mass of people lost control and virtually stormed the bus.
FIRST STEP TO RECOGNIZING PLO?
The crowd climbed onto the bus waving the Palestinian flag, forced open the bus doors, pulled out the returnees and carried them on their shoulders, chanting nationalist songs to the music of bands of Palestinian youths.
“The solution has begun today,” Dr. Azmi Shueibi, 46, a dentist from El-Bireh expelled in 1986, said as he crossed into the West Bank.
In Jericho, Ahmad Ahmad, deported 24 years ago, shouted as he was carried around by dancing youths: “This is the happiest day in my life; only the day the Palestinian state is established will be happier.”
Shueibi said the return of the 15 Palestinian leaders amounts to a de facto recognition of the PLO by Israel.
“They deported us because we were the first to declare that the PLO was the legitimate representative of the Palestinians,” he said.
“They know that I am one of the PLO, and they allowed my return,” he said. “This is the first step that the Israelis accept that the PLO is our representative.”
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