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Al-Ahram Weekly 5 - 11 August 1999 Issue No. 441 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 5 - 11 August 1999 Issue No. 441
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Focus Interview Features Travel Living Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters Closing ranks for final status
By Sherine BahaaFor three consecutive days in Cairo this week, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, accompanied by leading members of his Fatah movement, met with their opposite numbers in George Habash's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in an attempt to hammer out an agreement on Palestinian national reconciliation. The PFLP delegation was led by Abu Ali Mustafa, the deputy secretary-general of the Damascus-based organisation which has been a prominent opponent of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process launched by the 1993 Oslo Accords.
The Cairo meeting is the first in a series of face-to-face dialogues which are due to take place between Arafat's Fatah, the predominant force in the Palestinian Authority (PA), and major opposition groups during the coming two weeks. No venue has as yet been decided for the forthcoming meetings.
At the end of the Cairo meeting, PFLP spokesman Maher Al-Taher said issues of disagreement between the two sides still remained, though Mustafa, the group's second-in-command and the head of its delegation to the talks, referred to them as "a positive beginning".
The PA's Nabil Shaath was more upbeat about the meeting's results. "We really do not have any disagreements concerning the final settlement, and that was the crux of the discussions," he said.
But irrespective of their varied assessments of the results of the Cairo discussions, both the PA and its opponents seem to have a definite interest in maintaining their dialogue. The resumption of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, especially with final status talks now imminent, makes it necessary for Arafat to seek the widest possible Palestinian consensus. Such a consensus, Palestinians believe, would also bolster his negotiating position vis-à-vis Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The Damascus-based opposition is no less motivated, if for somewhat different reasons.
For one, they may well have realised that it is in their best interest to try and influence the negotiating process -- especially with regard to final status -- rather than try to stop it, which they have hitherto failed to do. Another, possibly more powerful motivation, is the changing position of their host and major backer, Syria, which is readying to resume its own negotiations with Israel, after a three-year-long halt under former Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
Syrian Vice-President Abdel-Halim Khaddam is said to have "advised" the Damascus-based opposition that the "time has come to forgo the armed struggle against Israel". The PFLP and other opposition groups are likely to have read between the lines and declared their willingness to hold talks with Fatah.
For his part, Arafat held two different meetings this week. The first was with the 17-member Executive Council of his Fatah movement. This, the first in six years, was attended by three prominent leaders, Abul-Lotf (Farouk Kadoumi), Abu Maher (Mohamed Maher), and Mohamed Jihad. These three "historic" Fatah leaders continue to work out of the PLO's offices in Tunis and had hitherto refused to attend any meetings of the movement's leadership held in the self-rule areas.
The second meeting, with the PFLP, was also chaired by Arafat in his capacity as the head of the Executive Committee of Fatah. This, according to Fatah Executive Committee member Saqr Habbash, was the agreed legal rationale for Arafat's participation in the meeting.
The absence of the PFLP's top leader, George Habash, from the meeting was underplayed by both sides. The PA's Shaath, speaking to reporters after the meeting, asserted that Habash's absence had not reflected negatively on the talks. "We have all the leadership of the PFLP here with us," he said.
According to PFLP second-in-command, Mustafa, the meeting dealt with three main topics. The first was concerned with the final status talks, the second, focused on organisational matters related to making the PLO more effective, and the last point concerned national dialogue among the Palestinians.
"The meetings are meant to reinforce the cohesion of the PLO and its institutions, as well as bring all parties to the final status talks," said Fatah's Ahmed Krei, head of the Palestinian National Council. The PA's Shaath, pointing out that the Fatah-PFLP meeting this week was the first since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, said, "We were always ready for this kind of dialogue but we have been waiting for other factions to come and talk," he added.
The PFLP's Taysir Qoba'a underlined the group's orientation towards a more realistic posture by asserting that while they continued to oppose the Oslo Accords, "Oslo has become part of our reality." This attitude is not new to Qoba'a himself, who -- unlike most of the PFLP's leadership -- moved to the self-rule territories in 1996.
"Timing is crucial," said Qoba'a, "Barak is about to start the final status talks which will determine the destiny of our people. We cannot leave our future for others to decide."
