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Al-Ahram Weekly 9 - 15 September 1999 Issue No. 446 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 9 - 15 September 1999 Issue No. 446
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Focus Culture Features Books Special Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Inter-Palestinian dialogue
By Abdel-Qader Yassin *The Oslo Accords swept everything before them -- nascent Palestinian national unity, modest PLO dynamism, a flawed Palestinian consultative democracy. After six years of Israeli procrastination, however, and as the hopes pinned on Barak's electoral success prove increasingly false, Yasser Arafat is slowly coming to terms with the fact that there is no easily detected light at the end of the tunnel. As a result the Palestinian leader appears to be attempting to put the Palestinian house in order in the hope of making recourse to Palestinian unity.
In the face of the aggravating crisis some factions of the Palestinian opposition have come to share Arafat's desire to run a tighter ship though Hamas, significantly, has remained aloof. Two months after the newly elected Barak had sought to establish his hard-line credentials -- no withdrawal to 4 June 1967 borders, no dismantling of settlements, no handing back of east Jerusalem and no return of refugees -- Amman witnessed a sudden flurry of Palestinian activity: secretary of the PA and Fatah central committee member Tayeb Abdel-Rehim arrived and met with Moussa Abu Marzouk, former head of the political bureau of Hamas, and Khaled El-Fahoum, head of the opposition umbrella group "The Alliance of Palestinian Forces". After a telephone conversation with Arafat in Gaza, El-Fahoum went on Israeli radio to express his readiness to work towards Palestinian national unity while on the same day Gamil El-Magdalawi, member of the political bureau of the Popular Front, confirmed that a meeting between Fatah, under the chairmanship of Arafat, and a delegation from the Popular Front headed by Dr George Habash, was imminent, something subsequently denied by Habash's office. Meanwhile a meeting held in Amman attended by leading members of the political bureau of the Popular Front, including Habash, confirmed the need for a meeting, though reserved Habash's right to refuse to attend.
In Cairo a meeting between Fatah and the Popular Front was held on 8 August, followed by a meeting on the 22 August between Fatah and the Democratic Front. The meetings both resulted in communiqués that stressed the urgent need for national dialogue aimed at consolidating unity and reconfirmed the right to establish a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem and the right of return. As a result of these contacts, the Follow-up Committee of the Palestinian National Conference (an opposition gathering) met in El-Fahoum's office in Damascus. The meeting soon became heated, with one participant asking El-Fahoum to give up the chair of the committee, and requesting the Popular Front to reconsider its decision to enter into dialogue with Fatah.
While dialogue on the Palestinian front is undoubtedly useful, the fear remains that Arafat will use it only as a tool to threaten Barak: should Arafat be able to extract a concession or two by rattling the unity sabre, then it will, many people fear, have served its purpose for the Palestinian leader. And such fears appear to be confirmed by two recent experiences: the Conference for National Dialogue recently held in Nablus and attended by all Palestinian factions in the self rule areas, and the second such conference, held a few months later in Gaza. Each turned out to be a forum for a great deal of rhetoric and little, if any, substance. On the other hand, any opposition shift to support the PA might have the advantage of persuading the opposition to modernise its own political and organisational institutions, and to formulate new political programmes.
* The writer is a Cairo-based Palestinian intellectual and activist.
