 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 29 July - 4 August 1999 Issue No. 440 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 29 July - 4 August 1999 Issue No. 440
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Travel Living Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters 'But I have Habash'
By Graham UsherWhen Israeli premier Ehud Barak mounted the White House podium last week to declare (unilaterally, of course) that "within 15 months, we will know whether we have a breakthrough" in the Middle East peace process, it was received with guarded optimism by Syria and cautious pessimism by the Palestinian leadership. This is because Yasser Arafat is keenly aware that movement on the Syrian track is likely to be accompanied by a go-slow on the Palestinian, given Israel's historic predilection for negotiating with the Arabs "peace by peace". Yet, whatever its eventual outcome, the current Israeli-Syrian thaw has already spawned other consequences for the Palestinians.
On 20 July -- at the very moment President Clinton was appealing to Syria that Barak's election victory heralded a "golden opportunity" for peace in the region -- Reuters released a report that Syrian Vice-President Abdel-Halim Khaddam had met earlier this month in Damascus with the Palestinian opposition groups, Fatah Uprising (led by Abu Musa), Ahmed Jibril's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine -- General Command, Saiqa and, in a separate meeting, with George Habash's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Quoting an unnamed official from one of these groups, Reuters relayed that Khaddam had "advised" them that the time had come to forgo the "armed struggle" against Israel and that they should instead focus on "social activities" and "form political parties". Although rigorously denied by all concerned, including the Syrian government, the Israeli media pounced on the report as "the most serious indication so far of President Hafez Assad's desire to reach a peace settlement with Israel".
If so, it is probably the easiest "indication" Assad will be obliged to make. Outside of the PLO since Abu Musa's revolt against Arafat's leadership in Lebanon in 1983, Fatah Uprising, Saiqa and PFLP-GC have long since ceased to have any political or military presence in the Occupied Territories and only have influence among Palestinians "outside" on sufferance from Syria. The same is not true of the PFLP and Nayef Hawatmeh's Democratic Front for the Liberation for Palestine, most of whose cadre and leadership now reside in the West Bank and Gaza. But they too, it appears, have seen the writing on the wall, at least as far as their relations with Syria are concerned.
On 20 July, Hawatmeh told the Palestinian Member of Knesset Talab Al-Sanaa that moves were afoot to hold a meeting between the DFLP and the Central Council of Arafat's Fatah movement in Cairo on 7 August. One day later, Fatah Central Council member (and Presidential Secretary of the Palestinian Authority), Tayeb Abdel-Rahim, met PFLP second in command, Abu Ali Mustafa, in Amman, where an "in principle" agreement was reached for a separate Cairo meeting to be held between the PFLP and Fatah. Do these moves augur a possible reconciliation between the PLO's pro- and anti-Oslo factions?
Yes, says DFLP politburo member, Daoud Talhumi. "We have been trying to arrange a meeting between Hawatmeh and Arafat for the last 18 months," he says. "The DFLP is still critical of the Oslo agreement, but we believe we have a responsibility to play a role in the coming period and defend Palestinian rights in the final status negotiations". Less enthusiastically, this seems also to be the stance of the PFLP, though it is now clear that should its meeting happen in Cairo it will be Abu Ali Mustafa, and not George Habash, who will talk to Arafat.
The formal aim of the Cairo meetings, says Talhumi, is to forge Palestinian "red lines" for the final status talks based on the Palestinian "national consensus". These include demands that Israel fully withdraw to the 1967 borders, that all Jewish settlements be removed from the Palestinian Occupied Territories, that Palestinian self determination be realised in the form of an independent Palestinian state "with Jerusalem as its capital" and that a "just solution" for Palestinian refugees be grounded in the principle of their right to return. Talhumi is confident that the majority of Fatah's 18-member Central Council would subscribe to these positions but, if unity is to stick, "we will need an official agreement with Arafat as the leader of Fatah," he says.
It is unclear whether he will get one. Most Palestinian analysts in the Occupied Territories view the DFLP and PFLP's turn to unity as less a case of "responsibility" and more a belated recognition of their own political weakness. Due to their blanket rejection of Oslo, says one former DFLP leader, the DFLP and PFLP have excluded themselves not only from the centres of Palestinian decision-making, but also "from the entire Palestinian political process since Oslo", which is "now based in the Occupied Territories and not the diaspora". Beyond this, there is the awareness that whatever political space Hawatmeh and Habash presently enjoy in Damascus and Lebanon will close when and if Syria moves to cut a deal with Israel on the occupied Golan Heights.
This is probably also the reading of Arafat. He has long since dismissed the PLO's historic opposition as "paper organisations", a charge that is not wholly inaccurate given that the PFLP and DFLP between them now command less than four per cent support in the Occupied Territories and not much more in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. So why is the Palestinian leader interested in a rapprochement now?
There are two motives, say sources. On the one hand, Arafat may genuinely seek a Palestinian "national consensus" on the final status issues, partly to strengthen his bargaining position vis-à-vis the Israelis and partly to "spread the blame" when compromises become inevitable. On the other, in sitting down with the PLO opposition Arafat is signalling his displeasure at an American role which, in the two or so months since Barak's election win, has moved from the position of "sponsor" and "arbiter" of the Oslo process to that of Israel's "partner" in "taking the risks for peace". In this scenario -- says the ex-DFLP source -- the Cairo meetings are Arafat's way of telling Clinton, "OK, Barak has the National Religious Party and the settlers to contend with. But I have Habash."
