The Long March To Peace

By Richard H. Curtiss

The Arabs came a long way this year toward a settlement with Israel. They made it clear at their August summit meeting in Casablanca, however, that they think it's time for someone else to meet them halfway. Since Israel won't, they must mean us.

At one time or another each of the Arab States bordering Israel has accepted the UN Security Council's Resolution 242, under which Israel would return lands occupied in the 1967 war in return for Arab acknowledgement of Israel's right to exist within secure and recognized borders. Only the Palestinians held out, which is not surprising since the original UN partition plan gave the Israelis 53 percent of Palestine, while Resolution 242 would let Israel keep some 78 percent.

In 1981, when he was still Crown Prince, Saudi Arabia's present King Fahd unveiled his eight principles for peace, which accepted 242's land for peace formula, and added provisions for a Palestinian mini-state on the lands from which Israel would withdraw. In 1982 those principles were adopted by all the states attending an Arab summit in Fez, Morocco.

Also in 1982, the day after the U.S. supervised the safe withdrawal of Yassir Arafat and 15,000 of his Palestine Liberation Organization fighters from battered Beirut, President Reagan put forth his plan, based upon Resolution 242's land-for-peace formula, calling for the Palestinians to govern themselves, not in an independent state but in conjunction with Jordan, in the territories to be evacuated by Israel.

Israel's Menachem Begin rejected the Reagan plan the day after it was announced. To make his message clear, two weeks later he defied U.S. guarantees for the safety of the civilians the PLO had left behind, and sent his troops and their Lebanese Maronite allies into West Beirut where some 1000 Palestinian men, women and children were dragged out of their homes and massacred, The Arabs, by contrast, announced explicitly that their own Fez plan was not incompatible with the Reagan plan.

Ever since 1982, however, extremists in both the Arab and Israeli camps have seemed to be working in unison to derail both the Fez and Reagan plans. Israel's Likud government took increasingly provocative steps toward a permanent presence in both the West Bank and in Lebanon. Then Arab extremists cited the absence of U.S, reaction to Israel's continuing provocations as evidence that the U.S. was not sincere.

Arafat nevertheless signed a provisional agreement in April, 1983, giving King Hussein a mandate to speak for the PLO in a dialogue with the U.S. on the basis of all previous peace proposals, including both the Fez and Reagan plans. "'When Arafat met in Kuwait with other PLO leaders, however, they cited U.S. inaction and refused to give their approval to his concessions. The long-standing battle between Palestinians like Arafat, who have decided to settle for a Palestinian mini-state in the territories to be evacuated by Israel, and "rejectionist" leaders like Muammar Qaddafi of Libya and Hafez al-Assad of Syria who are determined to wait for Israel to collapse, and then take it all, heated up.

Armed and financed by Syria, Abu Musa, an officer of Arafat's own Al Fatah organization within the PLO, rebelled. There followed battles in the Bekaa and the seige of Tripoli, in Lebanon. Syrians armed and then transported the Palestinian dissidents to confrontations with Arafat loyalists. Syrian artillery rained down a barrage of shells day after day, in an attempt either to bury Arafat in the ruins, or turn his followers against him. British journalist Alan Hart maintains in his informative book Arafat, Terrorist or Peacemaker? (reviewed in this issue of The Washington Report) that Assad gave up his attempts to kill Arafat and let him leave Tripoli only after Saudi Arabia threatened to cut its subsidies to Syria. Israel, in turn, abandoned plans to kill Arafat at sea only after President Mubarak of Egypt warned that if Israel did so, Egypt would end its "normalization" process with Israel.

Arafat escaped and reconciled with Egypt. The leftist leaders remaining in the PLO who, like the Soviet Union, were more interested in armed revolution throughout the Middle East than in the liberation of Palestine, broke with Arafat and joined the Syrian-sponsored coalition of Palestinian dissidents.

Free at last of the need for consensus with Palestinian extremists whose thinking has long been incompatible with his own, Arafat set out in late 1984 to prove to the world who really speaks for all of the Palestinians by calling a meeting, in Amman, of the Palestine National Council. The PNC is, in effect, the Palestinian parliament and is, therefore, the only body which can give legitimacy to Palestine leaders.

Once again Israel and Syria both tried to thwart this clear manifestation of Palestinian independence and moderation. Syria revoked the passports of all PNC members living in Syria and Lebanon so that they could not attend. Similarly, Israel banned travel by the 181 PNC members living under Israeli occupation, prompting Israeli peace leader Uri Avnery to comment that "The Israeli government clearly prefers an extremist PLO because the existence of a moderate PLO would require Israel to negotiate about the West Bank."

Virtually all PNC members who could, however, traveled to Amman to provide a quorum. There King Hussein told them that if the Palestinians would agree to negotiate on the basis of Resolution 242, their representatives in a joint delegation with Jordan would represent the PLO in its own right.

Resolution 242, with the loss of territory it implied, was a bitter pill for those Palestinians assembled from all over the world. The debate was long and impassioned, prompting Arafat's resignation at one point. Meanwhile, two million Palestinians living in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel itself saw real Palestinian democracy in action, since the entire meeting was carried live by Jordanian television. From it, Arafat emerged the undisputed leader of the Palestinians. A conservative estimate of his following would be 90 percent of the Palestinian people wherever they are—a majority that would be envied by any western democratic leader.

With his mandate renewed, Arafat signed on Feb. 11, 1985, an agreement to work with King Hussein on the land-for-peace basis. Although still unwilling to recognize Israel until Israel recognizes the Palestinian right to self-determination, Arafat has made it clear the PLO is willing to attend an international peace conference, with Israel, based upon putting all of the principles of Resolution 242 into action, so long as it is understood that the Palestinians will set up their own state, in confederation with Jordan, on the territories vacated by Israel.

President Assad tried once more to stop Arafat this summer, unleashing Nabih Berri's Shiite militia on Arafat's supporters in the Beirut camps. In the face of overwhelming force, Arafat's men stood their ground, as usual. Then, to the horror of both Assad and the Shiite militiamen he had armed, even Syria's Palestinian dissidents joined in the defense of the camps. The attacks failed, but only after another 1,000 Palestinians had died to confirm that the Palestinian resistance can no longer be split either by Israel or by self-seeking Arab leaders, and that it will follow a moderate leader, willing to make the compromises necessary to bring peace, at last, to his tortured people.

For the first time in history the Palestinians have an unchallenged leader, supported by all of our Arab allies, and backing the plan which has been the cornerstone of all U.S. Middle East policy through 18 years and five U.S. Presidents. Does it mean peace?

In his book on Arafat, Alan Hart says "Jordan and the PLO together are ready for negotiations on terms which no rational Israeli government and people can refuse." Unfortunately, the U.S. has for years sheltered the Israelis from the consequences of their irrational actions. It may therefore be necessary for us to abandon our role of doting parent so that America's spoiled child can grow up.

The Palestinians have come a very long way—through bloodshed, sacrifice, internal dissension and painful lessons administered by their Arab mentors—to reach the present crossroads for peace. Now it's time for Israel—and its U.S. mentor—to begin the same journey.

Richard Curtiss was Chief Inspector of the U.S. Information Agency when he retired in 1980 after 31 years of service with the US Army, Department of State, and USLA.