The crisis within the Palestinian leadership has ended with a tense verbal cease-fire between Palestine Liberation Organization officials in Tunis and Palestinian negotiators in the administered territories.
But the dispute that threatened to derail the Middle East peace talks is not yet over, as PLO leader Yasir Arafat made clear Wednesday, in an interview with an Arab newsletter in Jerusalem.
Although the threatened resignations of three senior Palestinian negotiators were withdrawn after they met with Arafat in Tunis earlier in the week, the PLO leader maintains that serious differences remain and would have to be further discussed by the PLO leadership in Tunis.
Arafat reportedly sharply attacked Faisal Husseini, Hanan Ashrawi and Saeb Erekat for having threatened to resign, warning them that he could easily replace them with other senior Palestinian representatives in the territories.
Much of the debate in Tunis focused on the “Gaza First” idea under which Palestinians would take control over the Gaza Strip prior to any agreement with Israel on the rest of the territories.
Arafat is reported eager to begin taking over leadership responsibilities under the Gaza First proposal.
But the option was flatly rejected Wednesday by Hassan Asfour, secretary of a Palestinian advisory committee on the peace talks. He warned that implementing the idea would lead the Palestinians into “a dark tunnel.”
Other Palestinians support the idea, which has become an issue both in the internal Palestinian debates and in the recent negotiations with Secretary of State Warren Christopher.
PLO EASIER THAN PALESTINIANS?
The PLO is anxious for an early breakthrough in the peace process because it is keenly aware that it is losing influence in the territories, in part due to its dwindling financial resources.
Palestinian leader Faisal Husseini reportedly told Arafat that university teachers and hospital doctors in the territories have not been paid salaries in the past three months. The money for their salaries used to come from PLO-sponsored sources.
Several Palestinian newspapers have also been forced to close in recent months as a result of the drying-up of PLO funds.
The Israeli leadership may well prefer to negotiate with the PLO should its stance prove less hard line than that taken by the Palestinian negotiators.
Earlier in the week, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Israel should negotiate with whomever is more moderate.
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin still opposes direct talks with the PLO. But he confirmed this week that he was informed in advance of a meeting last month in Cairo between a member of his Cabinet, Environment Minister Yossi Sarid, and senior PLO adviser Nabil Sha’ath. Knesset member Dedi Zucker, another member of the dovish Meretz bloc, also took part.
Rabin spokesman Gad Ben-Ari said that while Rabin had given the Meretz representatives permission for the meeting, they went to Cairo on their own and did not represent the government.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
