PLO Official Says He Would Like to See Jewish State ‘disappear’

The Palestine Liberation Organization is still dedicated to the destruction of Israel as a state, the PLO’s London representative affirmed here this week.

Interviewed in the magazine, “Events,” Said Hammami added that he did not mean Israel’s “destruction by massacre” but “I would love this state to disappear. Nothing would make me happier if, instead, there were one united secular state of Palestine in which all Jews and Arabs coexist in a one-man, one-vote system. That is what Palestinians dream of–all of us.”

While expressing conviction that there would be another Middle East war–“although I can not prophesy the date”–Hammami said the alternative was negotiation. “However, real negotiation appears to be impossible, at least for as long as Israel refuses to sit down with the PLO, and the Arab states insist that the PLO is the sole representative of the Palestinians.” he said.

Hammami was sure that the Arab states would never ditch the PLO and appoint Palestinian spokesmen acceptable to Israel to get the Geneva conference moving again. “There is no serious challenge to Yasir Arafat or to the PLO. The PLO is generally accepted by the masses. The PLO and the people are one and indivisible.” he said.

LEBANESE EDITOR SLAMS PLO

However, the magazine’s editor. Lebanese publisher Salim al-Lozi, does not share Hammami’s confidence about Arafat. In a long editorial, he criticizes the PLO’s involvement in the Lebanese civil war and concludes:

“History is full of examples of just causes lost by those who did not know how to win them. Haj Amin el Husseini, Mufti of Jerusalem, headed the struggle for Palestine for 15 years. For many years after he remained the only Palestinian hero until the advent of Yasir Arafat, who wrenched the flag of the struggle for Palestine from his hands. How long will Yasir Arafat remain leader, now that the cycle has ended?” he asked.