Avoiding Disunity is First Priority

By Abdul Salam Y. Massarueh

The current political drive of the Palestine Liberation Organization for a just and lasting solution to the Palestinian question recently faced an obstacle which could have aborted all of the expectations of the Palestine national movement. This snag, overcome through a "truce" on the West Bank and Gaza between the PLO/Unified Uprising Leadership and Islamic fundamentalists operating under the name "Hamaas," threatened to divide Palestinians under Israeli occupation. To observers, it seemed to be just what the Israeli doctor had ordered to halt the Palestinian uprising.

So long as the Unified Leadership avoids factional politics, it is hard for the Israelis to penetrate the Palestinian rank-and-file and identify and arrest the uprising's leadership. But when Hamaas appeared in the Gaza Strip, uncertainty temporarily loosened the strong bonds of trust.

Hamaas again is working with the rest of the PLO/Unified Uprising Leadership, but the rift gave Yasser Arafat and his aides many sleepless nights.

According to major US media and television outlets, the Israeli occupation authorities were openly euphoric to find Palestinians fighting each other in the streets of Gaza and the West Bank, as the two organizations called and sought to enforce strikes at competing times. One report said that military governors were ordered to detain pro-PLO youths and to leave alone the bearded activists of Hamaas who were calling for a holy war on Israel.

Such fragmentation could be even more hazardous to the health of the Palestine national movement than the splits and splinter groups which broke out in Yasser Arafat's mainstream Al Fatah organization in 1983, when Syria assumed a major role in nurturing disunity within the PLO.

Now, more than ever, it is important for Palestinians to speak up in support of the PLO leadership.

The 11-month-old Palestinian uprising has struck a responsive chord throughout the whole world. Since the world now is listening, the Palestinians must not lose the opportunity created by the sacrifices of hundreds of martyrs and deportees, thousands of wounded, and more than 10,000 prisoners. They must get their house in order and seize a unique opportunity to bring the long Palestinian struggle to a solution.

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

Unity Need Not Mean Unanimity

By Muhammed Hallaj

The Palestinians—and the Arabs generally—are often admonished to "get their act together." In fact, there is greater Palestinian and Arab agreement on what needs to be done to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict than there is in Israel. Last spring, when Secretary of State George Shultz thought he had "a neat idea" about how to bring peace to the Middle East, the leaders of Israel's two-headed government—Yitzhak Shamir and Shimon Peres—would not sit in the same room to hear Shultz's presentation.

The Arabs, on the other hand, unanimously endorsed a peace plan in their Fez summit in 1982 which still represents an Arab (including Palestinian) consensus on the peace process. The unity displayed by the Palestinians in the occupied territories during the current uprising, and between them and their national leadership in the diaspora, has not only made it difficult for Israel to subdue them, but it also confounded Israel's "friends" abroad who fabricate myths on its behalf. When signs of dissent, represented by the emergence of Hamaas, appeared to disrupt Palestinian unity in the occupied territories for a while, Israel welcomed the emergence of the radical group.

The Palestinians disappointed Israel by quickly containing the threatening conflict between the secular majority and the religious minority in their nationalist movement. The PLO helped by taking its time evolving its new political course and being sensitive to Palestinian opinion in the occupied territories.

There is no question that disagreement exists within Palestinian nationalism, inside and outside Palestine. This is natural. The Palestinians have developed a democratic tradition, and their debate revolves around issues central to their national life.

Dissent is a healthy phenomenon, but dissention is not. Palestinian unanimity is neither possible nor desirable, but Palestinian unity is. As long as dissent is kept within democratic constraints, and as long as it does not unduly strain the Palestinian consensus, it should be not only tolerated but also encouraged. When dissent is discouraged, it is likely to turn into violent dissention. The Palestinians owe it to themselves and the peace process to maintain broad agreement, but they do not owe it to anyone to outlaw dissent.

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