News Analysis: Israel Takes Gamble by Allowing Peace Opponents to Attend Pnc

On Sept. 6, 1970, a young couple boarded El Al Flight 219 en route from New York to Tel Aviv at Amsterdam’s Schiphol International Airport.

A few minutes after takeoff, the couple charged the cockpit, threatening to blow up the plane with hand grenades unless the crew followed their orders.

A security officer shot and killed the man; the woman was overcome by passengers and later handed over to the British authorities at Heathrow Airport. She was released a few days later, in exchange for a British airplane that had been hijacked to Damascus, Syria.

But even before the abortive hijacking of Flight 219, the woman was considered a heroine of the Palestinian cause.

Leila Khaled, then 26 and a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, had successfully hijacked a TWA flight traveling from New York to Tel Aviv on Aug. 29, 1969, and forced it to land in Damascus.

Now, Khaled, who at 52 and the mother of two is still a delegate of the PFLP, may return from exile in Jordan to the Palestinian self-rule areas.

She will do so with the explicit approval of Israel.

Israeli authorities recently agreed to hear return because she is a member of the Palestine National Council, the 540-member parliament in exile.

Under the terms of the agreement signed in September for expanding West Bank autonomy, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat agreed to convene the PNC to vote on amending those portions of the Palestine National Convenant that call for the annihilation of the Jewish state.

Israel, in an effort to ensure that the vote is held, has so far approved the entry of every PNC member whose name has appeared on lists provided by Palestine Liberation Organization.

Also among those whom Israel is allowing into the autonomy is Nayef Hawatmeh, the leader of the Damascus-based Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which militantly opposes the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords.

In addition to allowing the PNC members to convene for the vote, Israel has gone a step further by giving a commitment to Arafat that any member of the PNC who chooses to remain in areas under Palestinian control will be permitted to do so.

In taking these steps, Israel has taken a calculated risk so as not to be accused of blocking the convening of the PNC.

The meeting is to take place two months after the inaugurating of the Palestinian Council, the 88-member legislative body elected by West Bank and Gaza Palestinians in January.

The Palestinian Council was inaugurated March 7.

Arafat, too, has taken a risk.

Although he has expressed confidence that the requisite two-thirds of PNC members will vote for amending the anti-Israel passages in the convenant, there is not guarantee that this will happen.

“Only after the establishment of the independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, shall we amend the covenant,” Khaled said in a number of interviews she gave the Israeli media after gaining Israeli approval to come to Gaza.

“True, Arafat has accomplished a political advantage, but the occupation exists de facto. I return to my homeland by power of an Israeli permit, not by my country,” she said.

A recent public opinion poll conducted by the Palestinian Jerusalem Communications Center showed that the majority of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza oppose amending the covenant.

Arafat has a dilemma.

On the one hand, he would like the PNC to amend the convenant so he could present the vote as an election bonus to his Nobel Peace Prize partner, Prime Minister Shimon Peres, before Israel’s May 29 national elections.

On the other hand, he is aware that among his own people, amending the covenant is viewed as a capitulation to Israel.

In the wake of the closure imposed by Israel on the West Bank and Gaza after the four suicide bombings between Feb. 25 and March 4, Arafat was quoted as saying that the covenant would not be changed unless Israel lifts the closure and redeploys its forces in Hebron.

The Israel Defense Force was scheduled to evacuate most parts of Hebron this week, but Peres ordered a postponement as the crackdowns on Hamas by Israeli forces and Palestinians security continued.

The redeployment now may be delayed until after Israel’s elections and that, in turn, may affect the convening of the PNC.

Meanwhile, a senior Defense Ministry official reports in the Israeli media list week that the government had changed its mind regarding permits for some members of the PNC, who were quoted as endorsing the recent wave of terrorist attacks in Israel.

“True, some of these people said some nasty things recently,” said the official, “but if we content-analyze the statements of every Palestinian political, then we may have to throw 90 percent of them out.”

When the PNC does meet, Arafat would prefer to annul the current coventant altogether and enact a new one that would not longer call for the destruction of Israel.

The new convenant would express Palestinian national aspirations, including and independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

Arafat also hopes that once the controversy about the covenant is over, the PNC will have outlived its usefulness.

The PNC was formed May 28, 1964, in eastern Jerusalem, as the parliament of all Palestinians, including those living in exile.

Just as the Zionist Congress lost much of its importance after the establishment of the State of Israel, the PNC may suffer a similar fate now that the Palestinians in the territories elected their own representatives body, the Palestinian Council.

Just as the Zionist Congress lost much of its importance after the establishment of the State of Israel, the PNC may suffer a similar fate now that the Palestinians in the territories elected their own representative body, the Palestinian Council.

But, until the crucial vote on the covenant is held, the PNC remains at center stage.

Its more radical members have the opportunity to damage the peace process by voting against changing the covenant.

They also have the chance to dampen Peres’ chances in the race for prime minister, because if Arafat fails to deliver the change in the covenant, Peres’ credibility may suffer.