Several West Bank mayors who are known supporters of the Palestine Liberation Organization have rejected an Egyptian bid to Arabs living in Israel and the occupied territories to come to Cairo to discuss the current political developments in the region. The mayors, who met at the Arab University at Bir Zeit yesterday, declared that the PLO was the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and that any invitations should be sent to the PLO.
The invitation, broadcast by Cairo radio Thursday, appears to have created an open split in the West Bank leadership. While the majority of the younger mayors who won landslide victories in the April, 1976 West Bank municipal elections are strongly pro-PLO and have criticized Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s peace initiatives toward Israel, other West Bank notables hold different views.
Fahed Kawassme, Mayor of Hebron, once openly pro-PLO, has recently modified his stand and has drawn closer to King Hussein of Jordan who has agreed to extend financial aid to Hebron. Others, with links to Amman, such as the former Jordanian Interior Minister Moustafa Doudin, former Jordanian Justice Minister Nihad Jaralla, and Abd Rauf el Fares, a former member of the Jordanian parliament, said they would go to Cairo if invited.
EFFORT TO OUTFLANK THE PLO
Obviously, the legitimacy of any Mideast talks in Cairo would be strengthened by the participation of Palestinians. According to Prof. Shimon Shamir of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for Midwestern Affairs, Sadat’s failure to mention the PLO in his address to the Egyptian parliament yesterday and his representation of the Arabs in Jerusalem and on the West Bank as authentic elements in Palestinian society indicated an attempt to outflank the PLO. Shamir said that Sadat hoped to enlist the West Bank leaders to represent Palestinian interests instead of the PLO.
The extension of the Egyptian invitation beyond the West Bank and Gaza Strip to Arabs living in Israel, however, may not be a welcome development in Jerusalem. Israel’s policy of long standing has been that the fate of its Arab citizens was tied to its own fate and that Israeli Arabs should be treated differently from those in the occupied territories.
One Israeli Arab leader, former Mayor Seif A-Din Zuabi of Nazareth who is a Knesset member representing the Labor-backed Arab list, was quick to announce that he would accept the invitation to Cairo. But government sources indicated that it was not certain that Zuabi would be allowed to leave Israel on a “Palestinian” ticket. To do so would link Israeli Arabs with the rest of the Palestinians, one source explained. But the sources did not rule out the possibility that Zuabi would be a member of the Israeli delegation to Cairo.
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