The Palestinian delegates who attended the Middle East peace conference opening in Madrid returned home Sunday to tumultuous welcomes in the West Bank. Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.
Thousands cheered them in the streets and from rooftops. It was the largest outpouring of Palestinians that the Israeli authorities have allowed in years.
Israeli border police, in fact, formed a protective cordon around the buses, lest the returnees be unintentionally injured by the euphoric crowd.
For the moment, at least, the Palestinian peace camp seems to have gained ascendancy over the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas movement, which tried to derail the Madrid conference by calling strikes and demonstrations in the territories before it opened.
Hamas is especially disturbed by the tendency of mainstream Palestinians to accept an interim stage of autonomy in the territories.
The Madrid delegation no sooner returned to Jerusalem than one of its spokesmen, Ziyad AbuZiyad, announced the formation of a new political mechanism ” to advance the peace process.”
It will be the first Palestinian political body in the territories since Israel outlawed the National Guidance Committee 10 years ago.
The committee had consisted of the heads of the major public institutions serving the Palestinian community and local Arab mayors. The Israelis abolished it because of its nationalist tendencies.
The new body, which will have branches in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, will be headed by Dr. Sari Nusseibeh, a lecturer in philosophy at Bir Zeit University.
Nusseibeh, whom the Israelis kept off the Palestinian negotiating team in Madrid, recently served three months in jail under administrative detention for allegedly passing security information to Iraq during the Persian Gulf War.
AN INTIFADA OF OLIVE BRANCHES
The Palestinian delegates, officially part of a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation, came home via Jordan and the Allenby Bridge. They were greeted at the crossing by U.S. diplomats and American security guards.
As their bus passed through Jericho, the first large town in the West Bank near the Jordan River, they were hailed by throngs as ” the heroes of Madrid.”
Men, women and children waved olive branches in a display of popular support for their peace mission.
” I am absolutely overwhelmed,” said Hanan Ashrawi, who was the delegation’s spokeswoman in Madrid though she was not officially part of it.
Ashrawi was one of the six Palestinians who accompanied the official delegation as an advisory committee.
Its leader, Faisal Husseini, whom the Israelis refuse to negotiate with because he lives in East Jerusalem, was widely considered the de facto leader of the Palestinian negotiators.
Husseini told reporters that the Palestinians have proven by their demonstration their genuine desire for peace and an immediate solution to the conflict. He also said he is convinced Israel wants peace and will do its utmost to achieve it.
But he did not promise an end to the intifada, the Palestinian uprising that began almost four years ago.
Rather, Husseini said, the face of the intifada is changing. ” At a certain time, this movement was characterized by stones. Now the movement of the intifada is equipped with olive branches, ” he said.
He urged the Israeli people to create confidence-building measures to advance the direct negotiations that began in Madrid.
The massive demonstration repeated itself as the bus arrived at the Hakawati Theater in East Jerusalem, Husseini, wearing the traditional Arab headdress, was carried on the shoulders of the crowd as thousands shouted “Biladi, biladi” (My country, my country).
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