Never before has Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat gone so far to fulfill the demands of the Israeli leadership as he has during the past few weeks.
His recent efforts to destroy the military infrastructure of the Hamas militants have won only praise from Israeli policy-makers.
As part of their ongoing crackdown, the Palestinian security forces arrested two weeks ago Adnan Goul, the No. 2 man on Israel’s most-wanted list after the series of terror attacks in February and March against Israel.
And last week, Arafat gave Israel a special Independence Day gift.
He fulfilled the promise he made in a letter to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on the eve of the historic September 1993 signing of the Declaration of Principles, which is the basis of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Rabin was assassinated in November.
In what has been widely seen as a political masterstroke, Arafat convinced the Palestine National Council to revoke the anti-Israel clauses in its charter in a resounding 504-54 vote with 14 abstentions.
Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres hailed the PNC action, but Arafat did not secure the vote merely to satisfy Israel.
There were more selfish motives at work.
Arafat knew that if the offensive clauses were not annulled, there would be no chance of fulfilling the dreams of Palestinian independence, there would be no peace process, no Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank town of Hebron.
Known as the Palestinian parliament-in-exile, the PNC was established in 1964 as the supreme legislative body of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
According to regulations in its charter, members of the PNC were to be elected directly by the Palestinian people, but the elections never materialized.
Instead, PNC delegates were drawn from several groups: the mainstream Al Fatah movement and other organizations that long fought for the Palestinian cause, such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; Palestinian trade unions; and a number of wellknown independents.
Because of this flexible structure, there was never a definite number of members.
Arafat could change the number of delegates at his convenience, which he did on the eve of last week’s vote, when he appointed 98 people to the PNC, prompting accusations from hardliners that he was stacking the deck in his favor.
The PNC was officially the supreme apparatus for shaping PLO policy.
But it had lost the little influence that it in fact had after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority and after the January voting for the Palestinian Council, which represents Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Because the more recently elected council does not represent Palestinians in exile, the PNC will continue to exist as a Palestinian version of the World Zionist Organization, at least until — if ever — a Palestinian state is created.
Both the Palestinian and Israeli leadership worked to ensure that last week’s vote by the PNC would be a success.
A special task force, under the direction of Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat’s second-in- command, spent the past few weeks contacting the PNC delegates, persuading them to support changing the charter.
Abbas, also known as Abu-Mazen, had also played a key behind-the-scenes role in 1993, when he participated in the secret negotiations held in Oslo that led to the Declaration of Principles, which he and then-Foreign Minister Shimon Peres signed on the White House lawn.
Israel permitted all PNC members, without exception, to enter the territories to participate in the crucial vote.
Israeli authorities adopted the policy to make sure that no one would blame them if there was not a quorum for the vote.
As a result, a stream of former terrorists flowed into the administered territories to attend the PNC session.
Arafat could have made their return for the vote in Gaza into a dramatic spectacle, but he chose not to, primarily because he wanted something else even more: a vote that went his way.
There were celebrations marking the return of the aging terrorists, but the spectacle did not get out of hand.
This was partly because well known Palestinian officials such as George Habash, leader of the Popular Front, and Nayef Hawatmeh, leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, did not show up for the vote.
Perhaps the most prominent absence was that of Islamic Jihad and Hamas representatives, indicating that the rift between Arafat and the Islamic militants was as deep as ever.
But Arafat’s relations with Hamas were secondary. He had more important goals: to bring an end to the 2-month-old closure Israel had imposed on the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the wake of the Hamas suicide bombings; to make sure that Israel redeployed its forces in the West Bank town of Hebron, which had been postponed after the bombings; and to make a contribution toward a Peres victory in Israel’s May 29 national elections.
But Arafat’s primary goal was the creation of a Palestinian state.
Without amending the controversial clauses of the covenant, Arafat knew, even Israeli supporters of a Palestinian state would have to mute their calls.
A day after the April 24 PNC vote, Arafat began to reap the rewards of his efforts: Israel’s ruling Labor Party approved a platform that no longer expressed objection to the creation of a Palestinian state.
And days after that, Israeli officials said the redeployment from Hebron could come before the israeli elections, with some newspapers reporting that the move could take place as early as this weekend.
Even Likud opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu described the PNC vote as a “positive step,” adding that if he were elected prime minister, he would meet with Arafat.
True, as opposition figures such as Likud maverick Ze’ev “Benny” Begin pointed out, the resolution voted on by the PNC did not spell out the 28 anti-Israel clauses in the charter.
But the wording of the resolution was intentionally obscure.
The resolution stated: “The Palestine National Council decides to amend the Palestinian National Charter by canceling clauses which contradict the letters exchanged between the PLO and the Israeli government.”
As it was, Arafat was facing opposition not only from hardliners but also from within his own camp. The vaguer the phrasing of the resolution, he knew, the larger would be the majority willing to change the charter.
On May 5, the Israeli and Palestinian delegations are scheduled to meet in Taba, Egypt, for the first time for the permanent-status negotiations.
During those talks, which can last up to three years, the most difficult issues will come up, including the status of Jerusalem and the issue of Palestinian statehood.
The long and winding peace process between Israel and the Palestinians is entering a new phase.
Arafat made sure last week that if the permanent-status talks do not result in an independent Palestinian state, he will not have himself to blame.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
