West Europe Seen Drawing Closer to Palestinian Demands for Right to Self-determination

Western Europe is drawing increasingly closer to Palestinian demands for the right to “self-determination” according to the reactions of two European parliamentary assemblies now meeting in Strasbourg.

The Council of Europe, on which 21 national parliaments are represented began a full dress debate yesterday on a resolution critical of Israel. Supported by the Council’s Political Affairs Commission, it raps Israel’s settlement policy and calls for Palestinian self-determination.

The other assembly, the European Parliament, concluded a four-day meeting Sunday with a delegation representing the Palestinian National Council, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s de fac to parliament.

The European Council’s resolution, approved by a vote of 22-3, calls on Israel to stop creating new settlements in the occupied territories and says that Israel’s current policy “is illegal according to international law.”

The resolution stresses that Israel’s refusal to accept Palestinian self-determination and the PLO’s refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist are both an obstacle to a settlement of the Middle East crisis.

INCONCEIVABLE A FEW YEARS AGO

The resolution was drafted after the Council’s Special Commission on Middle Eastern Affairs visited Israel, Egypt, Syria and Jordan. The Foreign Ministers of the four countries also addressed the Council’s plenary assemblies. The debate this week will examine the resolution and amend it if necessary.

Senior Council officials said that even if Israel’s friends succeed to tone down its general critical line, “the fact that such a resolution could be presented would have been inconceivable a few years ago.”

The Palestinian National Council announced Sunday that it will open a permanent liaison bureau in Strasbourg in cooperation with the bureau of the Parliamentary Association for Euro-Arab Cooperation. Members of the bureau, representing members from most of the nine European Economic Community (EEC) member countries, have been meeting with the PLO delegation for the last four days.

This association represents some of the members of the European Parliament which is an organ of the EEC. The Council, a separate body with an advisory status only, represents 21 West European states, including the nine EEC members.

The Palestinians and the Bureau of the Parliamentary Association for Euro-Arab Cooperation also decided to set up a group in favor of Arab-European friendship and to take all necessary steps to promote such a policy.

The head of the Palestinian delegation, Khaled Hassan, president of the Palestinian National Council’s Foreign Affairs Commission, reportedly drew up for the European parliamentarians a five-point PLO peace plan which, he said, could serve as a basis for negotiations. It states that:

Israel should withdraw from all the territories occupied in 1967 which should be handed over to a United Nations representative for a 6-12 month period; during this period a referendum should be held to enable the Palestinians to decide on their future and express their “right to self-determination”; a Palestinian state should be created if the Palestinian vote gives a majority to this solution; at the end of the UN control period, negotiations should take place under UN auspices to try and settle “all outstanding problems”; these negotiations should take place with the active participation of the United States, the Soviet Union and Europe.

PLO officials in Paris and Beirut confirmed that Hassan’s plan is the organization’s official policy. They said that the plan has been made known to the foreign ministers of the four major EEC member states and will soon be presented to the other five. They did not name the four countries to which the plan has already been submitted.

Political observers in Strasbourg believe that the Palestinians have launched a major diplomatic offensive in West Europe’s direction and hope for a European diplomatic initiative after the May 26 target date for the Israeli-Egyptian autonomy talks.