The PLO: The Time for Leadership is Now

By Raphael Calis

It has, by now, become a familiar scenario: PLO leader Yasser Arafat meets privately with some European or American supporters of the PLO, Jewish or otherwise, and declares the PLO recognizes Israel, accepts UN resolutions 242 and 338, and accepts the principle of direct talks with the Israelis under a UN umbrella.

Encouraged, these ardent supporters of the Palestinian cause return home, leak the Arafat commitments to the press; and lobby strongly with their governments to recognize the PLO and speak directly with the umbrella organization.

A few days later, after requests for clarification arise in the Middle East itself, a Palestinian denial emerges: Arafat was misquoted, that is not what he actually said, or his statement was misrepresented.

Unfortunately, this is not just a scenario. The latest Bassani Abu Sharif article could become such a case. The PLO spokesman (some within the PLO now insist he is not an official spokesman)—and definitely a close political adviser to Chairman Arafat—published an official and signed article tying together, and thus going beyond, every past moderate statement the PLO has made publicly He said the PLO recognizes Israel as a fact, renounces terrorism, and accepts the two-state solution. He called for an international referendum in the occupied territories on the question of Palestinian representation. It is not coincidental that the article was at first distributed to Western journalists at the Algiers Arab summit conference, and thus did not initially appear in the Arab press.

The Nestinian leadership must acknowledge that the lack of a clear and consistent policy line and set of principles can do far more harm to the Palestinian cause than can any Zionist plot.

Since its publication in such papers as the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, and the New York Times—the Washington Post having refused to publish it—two top PLO officials denied that Abu Sharif's views reflected the official PLO position. The views of these two officials, Saleh Khalif (Abu Iyad) and Farouk Kaddoumi (Abu Lutuf), cannot be disregarded because of their seniority within the Palestinian leadership and their years of struggle alongside Arafat and others. Arafat, instead of clearing up the ambiguity, refrained from either endorsing the Abu Sharif principles or refuting them. The Abu Sharif article is the most dramatic example of this problem. If it is acknowledged formally, it has the potential for reinvigorating the pro-Palestinian movement abroad, and for neutralizing the pro-Israel lobby's argument against direct US-PLO talks.

It is not the only recent example of the ambiguity factor, however. Fatah committee member and Arafat loyalist Khaled Al-Hassan said in a front page interview with the Washington Times in June that he was being sent by Arafat to Washington to open doors for a possible PLO role in the peace negotiations. Two days after the interview was published, Hassan himself issued a denial in Tunis.

The list of Palestinian statements and counter statements is long and well known. Many Western political leaders, seeking to help the Palestinian muse, have instead been humiliated or downgraded in the eyes of their own constituencies. How much harm has this done to the Palestinians and to the Palestinian cause? And how can an end be put to it?

Distinguishing Strategy from Tactics

If anything, these contradictions in the Palestinian approach to diplomacy reflect a lack of distinction between strategy and tactics. No one, inside or outside the Palestinian arena, denies that the Palestinians and their legal, recognized, and chosen leaders have undergone crises and hue been subjected to all kinds of Arab and international pressures that would long ago have torn any other national liberation movement to pieces. The fact that the PLO has survived all these pressures—let alone successful assassinations and abortive plots against many of its ablest leaders—is a credit to its leadership.

But at the same time, the Palestinian leadership must acknowledge that such tactics, policy fluctuations, and lack of a clear and consistent policy line and set of principles can do far more harm to the Palestinian cause than can any Zionist plot or Israeli military venture.

It is a dilemma that is constantly being debated within the inner sanctums of Palestinian society—in the occupied territories and among the diaspora. Many hesitate to debate the issue publicly, because they do not want to hang their dirty linen in public or because they are afraid for their personal safety. Others do not want to provide the propaganda and information machines of Israel and its supporters with additional ammunition.

The problem, however, will not go away. It has, first and foremost, left the Palestinians facing the dilemma of what is actually the official PLO line. Some leaders of the Palestinian uprising—the intifadah—say that, in many ways, they have taken things into their own hands because of a lack of such direction from the PLO leadership. One of these leaders summed up his frustrations by asking, "Do we want to continue pursuing the armed struggle? Are we seeking a political settlement? Do we accept the state of Israel? Have we renounced terrorism? Are we ready for face-to-face negotiations? Just give us clear instructions and we will toe whatever line is chosen by our leadership. But let us end this state of flux."

The ambiguity prevents many qualified Palestinians from resisting the Zionist propaganda machine, not for lack of ability or talent, but for lack of direction.

No one denies that there are no easy answers for the PLO leadership. But the absence of a clear-cut policy creates very serious problems:

It can cause further fragmentation among the Palestinians, leading to even more splits and organizations than those that already exist.

It can lead to the alienation of the Palestinians under occupation from the PLO leadership based in Tunis. Some argue already that the intifadah is one direct result of this fluid situation, while others argue that the Palestinian leadership has failed to exploit the momentum created by the uprising to achieve tangible political results.

The ambiguity prevents many qualified Palestinians from resisting the Zionist propaganda machine, not for lack of ability or talent, but for lack of direction. Palestinians everywhere have been discouraged from opening more aggressive diplomatic and informational offensives within the environments in which they are living for fear of antagonizing the leadership or of deviating from a policy line that no one can spell out clearly.

It poses a serious dilemma to the multitude of friends and supporters of the Palestinians in Western Europe, the United States, and even in the Eastern bloc countries and the Soviet Union. Those ready and able to lobby effectively in the US, Britain, France, and other West European countries on behalf of the Palestinians have for years sought dearer signals from the PLO leadership that would enable both the PLO and its supporters to ride the wave, play the diplomatic game to the end, and in the process throw the ball back to the Israeli camp.

It has raised the issue of the credibility of the PLO leadership, both at the United Nations and in the United States, and credibility is half the game in diplomacy. American officials, for example, reportedly cite a lack of credibility as an excuse for not pushing harder to meet the Palestinians halfway. King Hussein can cite similar reasons.

Finally, ambivalent Palestinian positions have been a godsend to Western supporters of Israel, whose own leaders and arguments are wearing out their welcome and credibility in all but the most die-hard Jewish circles. The Israeli propaganda machine seizes upon every seeming flip-flop to paint a negative picture of Palestinians in general and the PLO in particular to dampen the growing foreign support for and sympathy with the Palestinians.

"Do we accept the state of Israel? Have we renounced terrorism? Are we ready for face-to-face negotiations?"

The solution to the problem is not difficult to envisage. The PLO leadership has always affirmed that democratic means are available to Palestinians to express their viewpoints. In fact, the PLO affirms that it is in power as a direct result of this process. The principles and the institutions to implement democratic procedures are already in place within the PLO framework.

Therefore, instead of launching test balloons in the Western media, but then not following them up politically, the PLO might consider submitting carefully formulated policy options to its existing and fully representative Palestinian parliament—the Palestine National Council. These options should be debated fully and then adopted or rejected. Once adopted by majority vote, they become the official line of the PLO, behind which Palestinians everywhere can unite. The job of the PLO leadership after that is to work for the implementation of these agreed and formally adopted policies.

While in theory this approach already exists, in practice there has been little input from rank-and-file Palestinians in the real decision-making, as anyone who has attended a Palestine National Council session can attest.

Palestinians under occupation adamantly refuse to break away from the PLO policy line. Like Palestinians everywhere, they pride themselves in having an umbrella organization that can speak for them all, defend their interests, and feed their infants. Some have paid a heavy price for this commendable loyalty. But, right now especially, they have a right to know where they are heading. Their search for guidance, clarity, long-term planning, and consistency does not in any way mean they are rebelling against their leadership. Nor are they seeking alternative leadership. No Palestinian wants that to happen. They emphatically reject submission to the diktats and solutions fabricated in the Western corridors of power, which generally do not serve their own interests but only those of Israel.

But they deserve answers. What follows the infifadah? Can a political objective be realized and how? If not, should they continue with the armed struggle? Answers to these questions can only come from a unified PLO leadership, not from individuals to elucidate, interpret, or deny. More than at any time in recent history, the fate of the Palestinian nation and Palestinian people is at stake.

Raphael Calis, a Jerusalem-born Arab journalist, is the bureau chief of the Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) in Washington, He is the former editor in chief of Middle East magazine, published in London.