They Can't, Shouldn't, and Won't

By Abdul Salam Y. Massarueh

It doesn't matter whether it is the Israeli plan for elections in the occupied territories, the Shamir plan, or the thought of finding West Bank and Gaza Palestinians willing to negotiate with Israel. All these ideas are rejected by the Palestinians under occupation themselves.

All of the 37 communiques released by the intifadah leadership since Dec. 9, 1987, point to the PLO as its leader and authorized voice.

Current Israeli leaders seek to split the Palestinians under occupation from their legitimate leadership. Even if the Palestinians agreed to such a dialogue, brutal Israeli methods dose every avenue of free intellectual expression under occupation.

Israel has succeeded over 21 years in stripping the Palestinians under occupation of their elected and legitimate leaders. It deported mayors and heads of councils, educators, and union leaders, forcing all of these expellees into the ranks of diaspora Palestinian leadership in exile in Tunisia, Baghdad, and the gulf states. Israel should be talking to these real leaders whom it has expelled over the past few years.

From watching Israeli "divide-and-rule" methods, one cannot avoid the conclusion that Israel is looking for quislings ready to betray their own people by capitulating to Israeli dictates.

Palestinian leaders in the diaspora are well attuned to the problems which Israel wishes to conceal. They have the freedom to discuss things in much greater depth than the people under occupation, who cannot display any affiliation with the Palestinian national movement or engage in political discussions, without disappearing into Israeli concentration camps for "detention" for six months at a time. With due admiration for those Palestinians under occupation, neither their political resources nor their political mandate would permit them to negotiate on an equal basis with the likes of seasoned, ruthless, and manipulative Israeli leaders like Shamir, Arens, and Rabin.

If talks are to be imposed on those Palestinians under occupation, and some of those local leaders are forced to begin a dialogue with the Israelis, then the outcome of such talks will not be a factor in reaching a real peace. If the Israelis and the Americans want leadership which can stand and deliver, then they have no choice but to negotiate with the PLO.

Palestinians under occupation cannot leave the country to consult with the PLO leadership in its diaspora. From watching Israeli "divide-and-rule" methods, one cannot avoid the conclusion that Israel is looking for quislings ready to betray their own people by capitulating to Israeli dictates.

What Mr. Shamir wants from his proposals for elections in the occupied territories, and from his search for Palestinians who are willing to talk to him and his government, is to pre-empt any role for the PLO. He wants to avoid discussing the core of the issues. Shamir's proposals aim only at offering some temporary relief to his armed forces and to the Palestinians under his brutal occupation, in return for a mandate to keep the lands of the Palestinians and turn those who refuse to leave into slaves forever.

To achieve this, Shamir is offering Palestinians the crumbs from his table. Anyone who gives credence to Shamir's offers perpetuates occupation, indefinite strife and the deprivation of Palestinians, and betrays the Palestinian intifadah and the memories of its hundreds of martyrs and thousands of injured victims.

Abdul Salam Y. Massarueh, a Palestinian-born US journalist, was 1986-87 president of the Foreign Correspondent's Association of Washington, DC