January 1989, Page 14

What is the Significance to Palestine of Talks With the US?—Two Views

Sanity to an Uneven Relationship

By Abdul Salam Y. Massarueh

The US decision to open an immediate dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organization is welcome, but overdue. It should have been made in 1982, after the PLO was evacuated from Lebanon. But "better late than never." The agreement is a turning point in the affairs of the Middle East. It will bring sanity to the unbalanced relationship between the U.S. and the parties to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

If this dialogue continues in the proper atmosphere, it will lead to a just solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Although none of that looks easy, it is encouraging that the historical process was begun by the same person, George Shultz, who only a few days earlier brought world-wide condemnation on himself when he barred Arafat's entry to New York.

The expected US-PLO dialogue has been entrusted initially to US Ambassador to Tunisia Robert Pelletreau, Jr. A career diplomat with long Middle East service, he is the US ambassador to the Arab capital which happens to be headquarters for the PLO. But Pelletreau is also a leading contender to be the Bush administration's replacement for assistant secretary of state Richard Murphy.

Knowing the strength of the Israeli influence that proliferated in George Shultz's State Department, there is the fear that Israel will find a way to scuttle the US-PLO dialogue. There is also the grave danger that while Israeli leaders are in total chaos and disarray over forming a new government, militant elements within the Israeli armed forces may escalate their violence against the Palestinians under occupation. The purpose would be to force the PLO leadership, which on Dec. 14 renounced terrorism, to move to protect Palestinians under occupation by escalating resistance.

If Mr. Arafat sees Israel escalating the violence, and the US administration remaining passive, then the PLO leader will have no recourse but to unleash a new wave of resistance against Israeli occupation. It means that by unleashing state terrorism against the Palestinians, the Israelis can make the PLO pledge to renounce terrorism look worthless.

The US should put Israel on notice that the US will not forego this opportunity. The Bush-Baker team must be aware of the designs of the Israelis, and their intent to crush such dialogue. Israeli intelligence has succeeded in penetrating all Palestinian resistance groups. There are reports that some of those "rejectionists" who work outside the PLO mainstream are hirelings to Israeli intelligence whom Israel can use to destroy any chances of complete US-PLO recognition.

Therefore, parallel to its dialogue with the PLO, the new Bush-Baker administration should lay down clear guidelines for its relationship with the next Israeli government. Washington should cease blind support for Israel and demonstrate that it has the ways and means to rein in the Israeli leadership. If Mr. Shultz was crystal clear with the PLO about what it should say and do in order to begin a dialogue with the US, then his successor, James Baker, and President Bush should be equally clear and firm with Israel. They might even aspire to "evenhandedness," a phrase which went out of fashion after President Reagan took office in 1981.

Now that the Kissinger 1975 restrictions against the PLO are gone, there should be no new crippling limitations attached. The US-PLO dialogue should not be limited to minor issues. It must deal with the core problem of peace in the Middle East. That issue is the right of Palestinians for self-determination and an independent state.

Abdul Salam Y. Massarueh, a correspondent for Middle East newspapers, was 1986-87 president of the Foreign Correspondent's Association of Washington, D. C.

Kissinger's Wall Tumbled Down

By Muhammad Hallaj

For more than a decade, PLO diplomacy identified as its highest priority engaging the government of the United States in a dialogue. This Palestinian interest in opening channels to Washington is, of course, understandable. The United States has the greatest influence over the Arab-Israeli conflict. it is a superpower with great influence in the region as a whole; it has chosen to become deeply involved in the conflict through its financial, economic, military, and diplomatic patronage of Israel; and it has jealously guarded its self-chosen role as the primary peacemaker in the Middle East.

For 15 years, the United States, of all the relevant world powers, remained a problem for Palestinian diplomacy. For 15 years, the PLO banged its head against Washington's closed door. The closer it got to Washington, the further Washington moved away from it. In the twilight of the Reagan administration, Washington had moved so far away that Arafat could not even reach American shores to make a peace offering.

Since 1975, when Henry Kissinger tied the hands of the US government behind its back by committing it to not deal with the PLO unless it met conditions required by Israel, US efforts became a case study in futility. And people kept suffering and dying.

So the PLO kept trying to "surmount the US veto." It tried to prove that it was a "responsible" regional power in many ways, including affording protection for American citizens and diplomats in Lebanon until the Israeli invasion in 1982. It used its "good offices" in Tehran—when it was still on good terms with the Khomeini regime there—to help free the first group of American hostages there. It protected the small Jewish community in Beirut from the dangers of the Lebanese civil war when it exploded in 1974. And it began to de-escalate the use of violence and emphasize diplomacy in its struggle for Palestinian national rights.

Washington noticed none of that. In the 1980s, it gave Israel a green light to invade Lebanon in an attempt to uproot the PLO. It escalated its support for Israel to the level of virtual partnership in its Palestinian policy. It adopted Israel's policy of viewing the PLO as a terrorist organization.

The PLO persevered in its crusade to "surmount the US veto." In 1985, it agreed to a confederation with Jordan, and it issued the Cairo antiterrorism declaration. Washington still did not notice. The PLO's efforts reached a climax when, in the middle of November of this year, the PNC recognized Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, and committed the PLO to a negotiated political settlement with Israel and reaffirmed its renunciation of terrorism. The Reagan administration replied by denying Arafat the opportunity to appear before the United Nations to explain the PLO's new policy. In the end, it took a Palestinian move to confound all pretexts, and a global demonstration of impatience with US attempts to evade the inevitable to bring Kissinger's wall tumbling down.

The decision to begin direct dialogue with the PLO does not in itself resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; Israeli inflexibility still stands in the way. But it gives Washington the opportunity to see the Palestinians with its own eyes and to evolve an American policy that is not a hand-me-down Israeli policy. It is a step on the way, and its importance lies in the fact that it is in the right direction.

Washington's next moves should be to stop dealing with the Palestinians as if they were criminals on parole, and to notice that Israel has not done anything to advance the prospects of peace.

Muhammed Hallaj is director of the Palestine Research and Educational Center in Fairfax, VA, and editor of its magazine, Palestine Perspectives.