A crossroads for the PLO
MIDDLE EAST
Today, 20 years after the Six-Day War, the ruling class of the state of Israel remains divided on the means of maintaining control of the Palestinian territories conquered at that time. Either pure and simple absorption, as the Likud advocates, with the maintenance of the existing apartheid system and eventual expulsion of the natives (in this regard, it is true that the fascist rabbi
THE EIGHTEENTH session of the Palestinian National
Meir Kahane only says out loud what a
Council (PNC), held from April 20-25 in Algiers, was lot of Likud leaders quietly think); or marked by the reintegration of the Popular Front for the the creation of a Palestinian bantustan hemmed in by a belt of Zionist colo-
Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for nies, as proposed by the Laborites led the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) into the Palestinian by Shimon Peres, with their old crony,
King Hussein of Jordan, being left to
Liberation Organization dominated by Yasser Arafat's run it.
If these are the terms of the political
This reconciliation was, in fact, brought about by the debate in 1987, they lead to the corollary of the Israeli victory in June 1967 impasse of the Arafat leadership's rightist policy. In recent
— the Arab defeat. Although the Sixyears, the PLO had taken the "Jordanian option"— an
Day War dealt a mortal blow to bourgeois and petty-bourgeois Arab nationalliance with Jordan that culminated in the Amman accord alism, embodied by the Nasser regime in February 1985. King Hussein and Arafat, squarely in line in Egypt and the left Ba'athist one in with the US proposals, used this accord to project a
Syria, its real fruits only ripened ten years later. This was when Sadat, the common delegation for negotiations with Israel.
anti-Nasser, inaugurated the process of
A year after that, the Jordanian king suspended the separate peace agreements with the Zionist state. Today, the Jordanian stage accord and closed Fatah's offices in his kingdom. At the of this is on the agenda.
same time, in concert with the Israeli Labor Party Bloc
Before this point could be reached, leader Shimon Peres, he sought to create the conditions the main political and moral counterweight to the June 1967 defeat - the for a deal on the West Bank and Gaza without the PLO.
tempestuous rise of the armed move-
The first part of this article, published in the last issue of ment of the Palestinian refugees in the countries bordering Israel - had to be
International Viewpoint, drew the balance sheet of the subjected to repeated blows from its policy followed by Arafat. This second and final part
"brothers," the Arab regimes. It was crushed in Jordan in 1970-71. It was analyses the process of reconciliation among the muzzled in Lebanon by Hafez El-
Palestinian groups and their perspectives.
Assad's Syria in 1976-77.
The recent assaults by the Amal movement, backed by Syria, against the Palestinian camps in Lebanon, are consolidating of the
1982 the results
Israeli invasion. In this way they are helping to create the conditions for the
Jordanian stage, even if the Syrian regime risks being the first loser from this. The Syrians had already prepared the ground for Sadat's betrayal in
1976-77, for which they had to pay the price.
In a Middle East where reactionary winds are prevailing today, including those of Islamic fundamentalism, there are only a few remaining pockets of progressive mass struggles. The most important is unquestionably the resistance to Israeli occupation of the Palestinian masses on the West Bank and in
Gaza. We are still a long way from the emergence of an independent movement of the proletariat transcending state frontiers and national, ethnic and confessional differences.
Unfortunately, the more distant a socialist perspective remains, the deeper the Middle East will sink into barbarism.
International Viewpoint • June 15, 1987
SALAH JABER
HE USSR had clearly shown its irritation over the policy followed by Arafat, especially after the conclusion of the Amman accord. But it nevertheless kept up relations with the PLO, in particular with the "centrist" members of its leadership. In fact, Moscow never gave up hope of winning back the PLO.
The Kremlin correctly estimated that the American card that Arafat was playing was a losing one, since the maximum concessions the PLO could offer remained incompatible with the minimum conditions for an accord with the most "moderate" faction of the Zionist establishment.
While Hussein might be able to find a reward in co-administering Palestinian bantustans on the West Bank and in Gaza with Israel, what advantage could the PLO bureaucracy, headed by Arafat, find in that? And that is the only formula for "settlement" that could come out of any negotiations with the Zionist state - at least in the present relationship of forces, which is not about to change.
Arafat's blindness in the face of these obvious facts is bound up with his refusal to think things through to the end. That reflects the contradiction of a bourgeois bureaucracy leading a national liberation movement, which is dependent on Washington's Arab accomplices, principally Saudi Arabia.
Important ally for the USSR
The Soviet leaders therefore had good reasons to think that despite itself, if not out of conviction, the PLO leadership would again be obliged to turn to them. But might not one wonder why they cling to such an unreliable ally, which has no ideological or political affinity with the USSR?
Paradoxically, it is this aspect of Ar-
afat that most interests Moscow. He is a good Muslim, recognized by the most reactionary Islamic regimes and sponsored by the Saudis, who moreover enjoys an undeniable popularity among the Palestinian masses. This puts him in a good position to oppose effectively the Israeli-Jordanian-American maneuvers from which he is excluded.
Thus, the PLO leader is an inestimable ally for the Soviet bureaucracy, which is trying to gain respectability eyes of Muslims, particularly since it is confronted with the double problem of Iran and Afghanistan. Also, for 15 years it has been a target of a systematic US effort to throw it out of
Agreements honored in the breach
Before the Amman accord, Moscow made great exertions to bring the PLO back into its orbit and reconcile it to Syria, the other kingpin in its Middle Eastern lineup. These efforts were relayed through the direct instruments of Soviet policy in the region, the DPLF and the PCP - then in alliance with the PFLP - and the South Yemen regime (see box on page 6). They led to the Aden accords of March 1984.
However, eight months later these were honored in the breach by Arafat when he convoked the Seventeenth Session of the PNC in Amman, without the presence of the PFLP and the DPLF. Subsequently, the PFLP, followed by the PLF (Yacub), broke off their alliance with their partners lined up with Moscow.
They joined the Fatah dissidents, Saika, the PFLP-GC and the PFLP in the framework of the the Palestinian National Salvation Front (PNSF) linked to Syria and Libya. One of the PNSF's main demands was the removal of Arafat from the chair of the PLO for treason to the national cause.
The DPLF and the PCP, following the Kremlin's orders, kept up their conciliationist efforts against all obstacles and all odds.
Hussein's announcement of the suspension of the Amman accord in February 1986 was to give Moscow and its regional political relays the opportunity to renew their efforts directed at the PLO, this time with much better chanc-
While with Moscow's blessing Algeria launched an appeal for the reunification of the PLO and offered to host a meeting of the PNC on its territory to consummate this, negotiations under Soviet auspices were initiated between representatives of the loyalist Fatah and the DPLF and the PCP.
These negotiations led in an initial stage to a "Moscow accord" in August
1986, followed in September by the Declaration of Prague signed by the three formations. This declaration already contained all the essential elements of the political platform was to be adopted by the Eighteenth Session of the PNC.
The Prague Declaration proposed abrogating the Amman accord, while at same time it reconfirmed the amformula adopted by the Sixteenth PNC calling for a "confederation (Jordan and Palestine). It expressed the hope for a reconciliation with Syria, but postponed the question of relations
On organizational questions, Prague Declaration envisaged reforming the structure of the PLO leadership in a more frontist and collective direction. It set April 1987 as the date for the next PNC, which was to meet in Algiers with the participation - for the first time - of the PCP.
The six months that followed the Prague accord were marked by intense The dominant right-wing faction of Fatah, led by Arafat, strove to achieve a reconciliation with Jordan and a reactivation of the Amman accord. Moscow and its regional relays and allies strove to implement the Prague Declaration.
In the first part of this article, I already described the fate of Arafat's efforts. Those of the Kremlin and its proved more fruitful. Syria had posed conditions for any reestablishment of relations with the PLO leadership that were too "radical" for it to accept at the start (in particular, breaking off relations with Egypt). Therefore, the Soviet camp's efforts were to be concentrated on Libya and
With Qaddhafi, the conciliators en-
MIDDLE EAST countered no problems. Hard pressed by a military, political and economic offensive mounted against it by Washington and confronted with grave setbacks in Chad, the Libyan regime more dependent than ever on Moscow. Its difficulties forced it also to water down its Arab policy. The war of the camps in Lebanon gave it the opportunity to extend a hand to the PLO leadership without losing face.
Thus, the PFLP and other Palestinian organizations and groups subsidized by Qaddhafi found themselves subjected to a pressure convergent with that of
The PFLP, however, was to be the main target of the conciliators, since it was both the essential and weakest link in the PNSF. It was the organization with the most prestige, the most autonomy trom Syria but also the most politically divided, with an active conciliationist fraction (Abu Ali Mustafa, Bassam Abu Sharif), and with George Habash, as usual, playing a balancing act. Typically, the PFLP leader hesitated until the last minute, and then finally begrudgingly contradicted himself.
Negotiations in
The PFLP did not join in the Tunis negotiations last March between the loyalist Fatah and its two partners in the Amman PNC (the PLF of Abul Abbas and the ALF, on the one hand; and the two pro-Soviet formations, PLFP and PCP, on the other. These negotiations led on March 16 to the adoption of a working document quite in line with the Prague Declaration, including postponement of the decision on Egypt, the main apple of discord
5
June 15, 1987 • International Viewpoint
MIDDLE EAST
Palestinian Organizations FATAH (Palestinian National Liberation Movement), the largest of the Palestinia 1 organizations. Led by Yasser Arafat. Financed mainly by Saudi Arabia. FATAH-RC (Revolutionary Council). Split from Fatah in 1974. An ultranationalist terrorist organization led by Abu Nidal. Financed today by Libya. FATAH dissidents A split from Fatah in 1983. A radical nationalist organization led by Abu Musa. Linked to Syria. PFLP(Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine). A nationalist organization led by George Habash. Maintains relations with Syria, Libya and the USSR. PFLP-GC (General Command). A split from the PFLP in 1986. A nationalist group led by Ahmed Jibril. Linked to Libya and Syria. DFLP (Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine). A split from the PFLP in 1969. A Stalinist organization led by Nayef Hawatmeh. Linked to the USSR. PLF (Palestinian Liberation Front). A split from the PFLP-GC in 1976. It split in 1984 into two grouplets: one, led by Talaat Yacub, is aligned with the PFLP; the other led by Abul Abbas (involved in the Achille Lauro incident), is linked to Iraq. PPSF ( Palestinian People's Struggle Front). A nationalist grouplet linked to Syria and Libya. SAIKA The Palestinian branch of the ruling Ba'ath party in Syria. ALF (Arab Liberation Front). The tiny Palestinian branch of the ruling Ba'ath party in Iraq. PCP(Palestinian Communist Party). The former West Bank section of the Jordanian CP, a classical Stalinist organization linked to Moscow. [For an analysis of the historical evolution of the PLO, see the report adopted by the United Secretariat of the Fourth International in June 1986, and published in the journal
6
International Marxist Review, Spring 1987.1 * with Aralat. International Viewpoint • June 15, 1987
It was nonetheless important that in signing this new document — more weighty than the Prague Declaration -Fatah ratified the commitment that it had made in the former statement to abrogate the Amman accord, especially since in the meantime Arafat had been striving to do just the opposite.
Parallel to this, Qaddhafi was to issue a call to the various components of the opposition to Arafat to meet in Libya in order to set down their conditions for the reunification of the PLO. The result of this was the Tripoli Document signed on March 23 by the organizations financed by Libya - the PFLP, the DPLF, the PFLP-GC, the PLF (Yacub), the PPSF and even the Fatah-RC of Abu Nidal.
Relations with the Egyptian regime
The only components of the PNSF that refused to put their names to the Tripoli Document were the Fatah dissidents and Saika, both of which, backed by Damascus, demanded the removal of Arafat as a precondition for reunifying the PLO. On the other hand, the PFLP signed both documents, the Tunis and the Tripoli statement, claiming that they were not contradictory.
In fact, the main difference between the two documents concerned the question of relations with the Egyptian regime. The Tripoli platform, unlike the Tunis one, openly declared for a break with the Cairo government, not the sort of thing to displease the Libyan regime, whose relations with Mubarak's Egypt are conflict-ridden.
The bargaining to get the PLFP to take part in the negotiations among the Palestinian formations at the Eighteenth Session of the PNC, set for April 10-20 in Algiers by the Tunis document, was to focus on the Egyptian question. The PFLP would demand that the Executive Committee of the PLO as such declare itself in favor of abrogating the Amman accord and of breaking relations with Cairo preliminary to the PNC meeting.
Subjected to combined pressures from Moscow, Algeria, the DPLF and the PCP — with the approval of Libya -Habash agreed to participate in the new of the PNC without winning (Yacub) followed his lead.
On the other hand, the PFLP-GC, the PFLP and the Fatah-RC refused to participate in the PNC, even though the latter two had taken part in the bargaining with the loyalist Fatah up to the last minute. To justify this, they cited their attachment to the Tripoli document. (In fact the problem of its representation in the leading bodies of the PLO seems to have been more important than anything else for the Abu Nidal group).
occasions, compromises among the Palestinian factions have been drawn up in the Algerian capital. In 1983 already at the Sixteenth Session of the PNC held in Algiers a laborious compromise was worked out between the Arafat-led dominant faction in the PLO, which was then accentuating its rightist course, and the nationalist and Stalinist left of the Palestinian movement. On the two questions at the center of the wheeling and dealing at the last PNC - relations with Jordan and Egypt, the 1983 session adopted the following position:
• The PNC committed itself to "consolidate the special relations between the Jordanian and Palestinian peoples," and, while reaffirming the PLO's status as "the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people," considered that "future relations with Jordan must be established on a confederal basis between two independent states."
• While supporting "the struggle of the Egyptian people and its patriotic forces to put an end to the policy dictated by the Camp David accords," the PNC called on the Executive Committee to "establish relations with the Egyptian regime on the basis of its renouncing the Camp David policy."
These ambiguous formulations, which represented a clear retreat from those adopted in previous sessions of the PNC, easily lent themselves to the interpretation that Arafat made of them, and which enabled him to present his subsequent alliance with the Jordanian and Egyptian regimes, as well as the Amman accord of February 1985, as political options in conformity with the orientation adopted by the PNC, and therefore "legitimate."
Fundamental concession made by left
However, because of their very ambiguity, these formulations constituted a compromise between the Arafat leadership and the conciliationist, nationalist and Stalinist left represented mainly by the PFLP and the DPLF. In fact, in this compromise it was the left who made the fundamental concession.
The deliberate ambiguity of these formulations, in contrast to the rather clear resolutions adopted by previous sessions of the PNC, could have no other purpose than to open the way for the Arafat leadership's new reactionary option.
Furthermore, acceptance of the principle of a Jordanian-Palestinian "confederation" was in itself an enormous concession made explicitly by the left to the Arafat leadership, and all
the more so because this idea came from King Hussein and echoed the Reagan Plan.
With respect to the resolutions adopted by the Sixteenth Session of the PNC, it might have been expected that the new session in Algiers would mark an advance in the right direction for the PFLP and the DFLP. Was not the Eighteenth Session going to end the four years during which the Arafat leadership was able to give free rein to its which had concluded in a to-
Official abrogation of the
Amman accord
This time, in fact, Arafat and his companions, were forced to make two concessions to their partners on the left, which were designed first of all to satisfy the USSR. There was the minor of including the PCP as such in the institutions of the PLO. And there was the symbolically more important one of officially abrogating
It is true that the accord had been a dead letter for a long time, at least since the Jordanian king proclaimed its "suspension" more than a year before the Algiers meeting. The abrogation of the Amman agreement, by its own terms, was in any case more of a belated death certificate than an execution: "Since it is no longer in force, it is considered annulled."
Nonetheless, the fact that PLO officially put its stamp on this death certificate, while Hussein had confined himself to suspending the accord (thus not ruling out its reactivation), is not without importance. In so doing, the PLO leadership disregarded the warning of Egyptian president Mubarak, while at the same time trying to finagle by using the most anodyne formulation
The position of Arafat and his associates is, in fact, very uncomfortable. On the eve of the PNC, they were confronted with the following dilemma:
• Either yield to Jordanian-Egyptian pressure by formally accepting Resolution 242 (1967) of the UN Security Council and officially renouncing armed struggle against Zionism. That would have made it possible to reactivate the Amman accord, but at the price of a still graver split in the loyalist Fatah than the one in 1983, as well as of a grave crisis of confidence among the Palestinian masses that support the PLO; and a decisive break with the USSR, the traditional left of the PLO and their allies.
Without the slightest guarantee of advantages for the PLO leadership in the context of a deal with the United States and Israel, such an attitude would have represented the maddest sort of reactionary adventurism. It would in fact have been suicidal.
• Or yield to the pressure from Moscow by abrogating the Amman agreement so as to place themselves again in the framework of the Soviet doctrine for settling the Israeli-Arab conflict. That is, participation by the PLO as an independent Palestinian delegation in a international conference that would negotiate an overall "settlement" of the conflict in all its aspects
This conference would be held under UN auspices with the participation of the five permanent members of the Security Council, and would lead to the
"independent" Palestin-
The obvious risk of the second alternative for the PLO leadership was cutting itself off from its Egyptian ally, and offering a pretext to the Amman-Cairo axis for taking part in a new Camp David deal settling the fate of the West Bank and Gaza without the
On the other hand, the advantages of the second option were also clear, unlike in the case of the first — restoration of the moral credit of the PLO leadership, which had been gravely damaged by its Jordanian fiasco; reconsolidating its own ranks and those of the PLO, and therefore reinforcing its political weight at a time when it most needed it; and last but not least, renewed support from the USSR, with all that this implies as regards the Syrian attitude, and consequently for the war of the camps in Lebanon.
The balance, therefore, swung decisively in favor of the second option, all the more so because certain factors aggravated the already quite dubious character of the first - the entanglement of the Reagan regime in the Irangate affair; the uncertainty of the relationship of forces in Israel between Likud, hostile in principle to any compromise on the West Bank and Gaza, and the Labour Bloc led by Peres; the intransigent opposition of Peres himself to participation by the PLO in any
This is why the Arafat faction could only bend, willingly or not, to the pressure from Moscow, which was insistently relayed by its own "centrist" associates within the leadership of Fatah and the PLO. It agreed reluctantly to official abrogation of the Amman accord and could not oppose the adoption by the PNC of a motion on the 'international conference" in conformity with the Soviet doctrine:
"A conference with full powers under the auspices of the UN on the basis of all the the UN resolutions relating to the Palestinian question and the Israeli-
MIDDLE EAST Arab conflict [that is, including the General Assembly resolutions that, unlike the Security Council resolution, recognize the national rights of the Palestinian People], in which the five permanent members of the Security Council will participate, as well as the concerned parties, including the PLO, on a basis of equality with the other delegations to the conference."
However, while accepting these inevitable concessions, the Arafat leadership took great care to rule out any forthat could prove an obstacle to pursuing its special alliance with Jordan and Egypt. It was to be aided by the fact that the USSR does not demand a break with these two countries. In fact, it is conducting its own charm offensive toward them. Such a break is demanded only by the PFLP and, to a lesser extent, by the DFLP.
The Arafat faction therefore pulled off the exploit of getting the PNC to adopt formulations on relations with Jordan and Egypt that by comparison with those of the Sixteenth Session represented a new step to the right! (In the same vein, this faction forced the PNC to adopt a motion of explicit support for Saddam Hussein's Iraq in its war against Iran, while the 1983 session had limited itself to calling for an end
Ideological and programmatic pretensions
It needs to be said, however, that up against such wilted leaderships as those of the Palestinian left represented in the PNC, the Arafat leadership's task was not an arduous one. In fact, instead of fighting for political positions in conformity with their ideological and struggle of the Palestinian people — it should be recalled that the Twelfth PNC in 1974 called for "establishing a national democratic regime in Jordan ... in collaboration with the Jordanian national forces" - the PFLP and DPLF leaders waged a stubborn fight in Algiers for the reconfirmation of the formulations adopted at the Sixteenth Session of the PNC, the very ones that Arafat used to justify his policy over the last four years!
The 1983 formulations were an opportunist compromise with respect to the previous line of the PLO, defended by the left in the PNC. Since the new 1987 compromise was a compromise with respect to the 1983 formulations, it could only be still worse. In this way, from one session to the next of the PNC, in the name of the sacrosanct 7
"national unity" beloved of Stalinists and petty-bourgeois nationalists, the Palestinian left has endorsed the inexJune 15, 1987 • International Viewpoint
MIDDLE EAST orable rightist drift of the PLO.
The resolution of the last PNC was not content with reaffirming the principle of a "Jordanian-Palestinian confederation" adopted in 1983. It defended the Amman accord while proclaiming it inoperative and thereby opened the road for renewing it.
### "PFLP's tough stand did not last"
With regard to Egypt, this resolution was formulated so as to give no offensive to the Mubarak regime and to pose no impediments to pursuing the relations established with it. What is more, it ignored the Egyptian "patriotic forces" for which the 1983 resolution exsupport in their against the Camp David accords.
It is understandable, therefore, why the editor in chief of the semi-official journal of the loyalist Fatah published in Paris (Al-Yom Assabeh of May 11) could have an easy time making fun of the PFLP, recalling this organization's long history of retreats and ending by pointing out:
"Even on these two specific questions [the PLO's relationship with Jordan and Egypt), the PF's tough stand did not hold up until the end. The formulation accepted by the PF with respect to abrogation of the Amman accord in fact justified the conclusion of this agreement by saying that it was 'with the aim of achieving the common interest of the Palestinian and Jordanian ples in conformity with the decisions of the Arab summit in Fez, and the accord was 'based on the decisions of the PNC,' and did not violate them, as other documents of the FP said.
"Likewise, the formulation that the PF accepted on relations with Egypt was not designed to break off such relations (as the PF had demanded before and during the discussions) but rather 'charged the Executive Committee of the PLO to define the principles of Egyptian-Palestinian relations basis of the consecutive sessions of the PNC.' And when the PF insisted that the Sixteenth Session of the PNC (the resolution that mentions the Camp David accords) be cited in particular, it agreed that only the basic Palestinian principles (statehood, return and self-determination) in that resolution be re-
"This is why we can say that the tough stand of the PFLP is purely formal. At bottom, the PF inclines toward the policy of open bridges practiced by the PLO."
The author of the preceding lines had least had the merit of frankness about
8
the character of the resolutions adopted by the Eighteenth Session of the PNC!
How, then, should we interpret the reInternational Viewpoint • June 15, 1987 action of Mubarak in ordering the closure of the PLO offices in Cairo in the of the last session of the PNC? The astonishment of Arafat and his associates at this measure was no doubt quite sincere. They had fought bitterly to the last minute, risking a breakup of the PNC several times, to avoid any formulation that could harm their relations with the Egyptian re-
In reality, in reacting as he did, Mubarak did not intend to express his irriat a resolution formulated in such an anodyne way, but rather at the overall meaning of the Eighteenth Session of the PNC. It was a major success for Soviet policy in the Middle East. And nothing could better symbolize this than the crucial role played by the USSR delegation in the deliberations in Algiers.
This success came in the midst of a general political offensive by Moscow directed at the Arab countries - another illustration of the more dynamic foreign policy of the USSR under Gorbachev, which contrasts strongly with the great inertia of the bureaucratic system internally.
At the same time that the PNC was being held in Algiers, the Soviet leader was hosting the USSR's main Arab ally, the Syrian president Hafez El-
Assad, in Moscow. In a sort of tandem with the PNC in Algiers, the two chiefs of state issued a common declaration denouncing "partial and separate accords" (an allusion to the American doctrine illustrated by the Camp David
"intaccords) and calling for an ernational conference with full powers"
under the auspices of the UN, and so on
- exactly the formula adopted at the same time by the meeting in Algiers.
Over and above the symbolic importance of this double stroke, while promising increased military and economic aid to his
Syrian ally, Gorbachev pressed him strongly to take a more flexible attitude toward the PLO and the Iraqi regime, to which Moscow has sharply increased its aid in recent months in its war against Khomeini's Iran.
Gorbachev's Arab strategy is coherent and relatively simple.
It is focused around the two hot spots in the
Middle East - the Israeli Arab conflict and the Gulf war. At a time when the US administration, bogged down in the scandal of arms sales to Iran via Israel, seems more than ever in collusion with "the enemies of the Arabs,"
Moscow is championing the Arab cause in every respect.
The Kremlin's charm offensive is not restricted to its traditional allies, including
Iraq, with which it has warmed up its relations after a bit of a chill in
1985.
It has even touched Washington's clients.
A highranking Soviet delegation has recently made a tour of the
Gulf emirates, assuring them of Moscow's resolute support for their security
(against Iran).
The USSR has also leased three oil tankers from its fleet to Kuwait, which is under threat from Tehran. Finally,
Moscow has generously rescheduled the military debt it is owed by Egypt
great pomp and circumstance, it would it is at a crossroads.
($3,000 million) on very favorable conditions, embarrassing the Reagan administration, which, at loggerheads with a Congress obsessed by the size of the US budget deficit, cannot offer
However, Moscow could find no better device to revive its image as champion of the Arab cause than 'international conference" to settle the Israeli-Arab conflict. It shares entirely the official point of view of the Arab states, favoring an Israeli all the territories occupied in 1967 and the creation of an independent Palestinian state in exchange secure borders. It is firmer about this than some of the Arab states, such as Egypt not long ago and Jordan today. So, it would have a magnificent opportunity for denouncing Israeli-American complicity. would be the sum total of what such a conference could offer, because there is no way that the Zionist state would accept these conditions.
In reality, Moscow has no interest in seeing "peace" established between Israel and the Arab states. The IsraeliArab conflict is much more costly in financial and political terms for the United States than it is for the USSR. For this same reason, Washington is anxious to reach a "Pax Americana" between its Arab clients and Israel.
International conference no more than a fig leaf
Since the time when Kissinger headed the State Department, the US government has been engaged in an intense effort to achieve separate settlements between Israel each of its Arab neighbors, with the exception of Syria. This policy had its first and main success under Carter, with the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. It suffered a grave setback under Reagan, with the collapse of the treaty laboriously arrived at between Israel and Amin Gemayel's Lebanese government.
Today, the US administration is concentrating its efforts on the Israeli-Jordanian front. But King Hussein cannot afford to adopt an attitude like that of Sadat. His kingdom is much too weak for that. He needs an international cover in order to be able to negotiate officially and conclude an accord with Israel. But at the same time he is in agreement with his Israeli Labourite pals and the US administration to exclude any international "with full powers," in which the USSR and Syria would have the right of veto.
This is why Hussein, Peres, and the US secretary of state George Schultz have worked out together their own conception of an international conference. After an opening session with into bipartite commissions that would examine the conflict between Israel and each of its neighbors, which would be fully independent in
In a nutshell, such an international conference would be no more than a fig leaf — to use the apt expression of the US magazine Newsweek — for direct and separate negotiations between Jor-
However, even supposing that the opposition of the Likud hawks to any territorial compromise on the West Bank and in Gaza could be surmounted, such a fig leaf would be very much in danger of proving transparent, inasmuch as Syria and the USSR could not go along with such an operation.
That leaves the PLO. Its exclusion from the whole process, for different reasons, suits both the Jordanians and the Israelis. In this connection, by making a participation of the PLO in a fig-leaf conference still more improbable, the last should, on all counts, have satisfied Peres and Hussein.
In particular, the closing of the PLO offices in Egypt, which was accompanied by an invitation to Cairo for Abul Zaim, a Fatah renegade on the Jordanian payroll, represents an alignment of Egyptian policy with that of Jordan in
Nonetheless, Mubarak's Egypt, like Saudi Arabia, in reality ardently hopes that the PLO will continue to follow the trajectory it set in the past four years and come to make the ultimate concessions that would make it possible to involve it in negotiations with Israel in the framework of a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation.
In fact, while Hussein and Peres have no intention of including the PLO — no matter how chastened - in their joint administration of the West Bank, Washington's other Arab partners do not share their motivations. Quite the contrary, they think that a Palestinian
- which only Arafat's PLO could offer — is still more necessary for a settlement of the fate of the two Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 than an international one.
Without that, any settlement would face opposition and a very dangerous upping of the ante by Moscow and its Arab allies, including the PLO and the majority of the Palestinians following it. This is why the Egyptian attitude, unlike the Jordanian one in 1986, cannot be interpreted as excluding the PLO but rather as putting pressure on it to bring it back into Cairo's orbit.
In this way, therefore, the Arafat leadership found itself being subjected pressures in the aftermath of the Eighteenth Session of the PNC. Once more,
MIDDLE EAST
On the one hand, Moscow is putting the pressure on to get it to complete the step begun at the PNC by making a reconciliation with Syria. Gorbachev prepared the ground on the Syrian side, and George Habash immediately devoted himself to this task after the Algiers session. He has been received in Damascus by Hafez El-Assad, who tol him that the last PNC was "a step ir the right direction" that he hoped to see confirmed politically and completed by a reunification with all the other member organizations of the PNSF.
Saudi Arabia and Egypt pile on the pressure
On the other hand, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are putting on the pressure to get a virtual wiping out of the political results of the last PNC not only through a re-establishment of the PLO's official relations with Egypt but also with Jordan, and even a renewal of
Facing these two opposing paths, as a rightist bourgeois leadership, the Arafat team inclines firmly toward taking the second. This is despite the last PNC, which it accepted as a compromise imposed by the circumstances and which it would be only too happy to as soon as it thinks that is
In any case, the Arafat leadership will by no means firmly commit itself to the Soviet-Syrian side, unless it has no other choice. In other words, it will continue unceasingly to explore the other road, in hopes that it will open
For example, at its first working meeting the new Executive Committee elected by the Eighteenth session of the PNC — dominated, as usual, by the Arafat faction — decided on May 17 (despite the demands for collective leadership bandied about by the left) to send a delegation to Cairo in the near future headed by Arafat himself, while another high-ranking Palestinian delegation is to go to Amman!
The representatives of the PFLP, the DFLP and the PCP in the Executive
"expressed their reservations." On May 20, a representative of the PF declared that this organization "notes with concern this clear tion of the resolutions of the PNC and sees it as a sign that does not favor the reunification of all the Palestinians."
The Stalinist and nationalist petty-bourgeois opportunists have always been more conciliatory toward the bourgeois leaderships than the latter have been toward them. These opportunists have always lost in this game. June 15, 1987 • International Viewpoint