The Withering Rose

In countless Arab cities and towns, walls have long been plastered with posters depicting fierce guerrillas wielding blazing Kalashnikov submachine guns. Now Al-Fatah, largest of the fedayeen organizations, is trying to create a less belligerent image. The newest Fatah wall poster shows a rose growing out of a gun barrel, a Picasso-style peace dove and the English inscription FOR LOVE,PEACE AND FREEDOM.

Love and peace have so far proved elusive. Last September, the guerrillas and the Jordanian army fought a ten-day civil war in which 2,000 died. Since then, there have been four major clashes between the fedayeen and King Hussein's soldiers. Each time the guerrillas came off second best; the most recent skirmish two weeks ago cost them 20 men. The fedayeen are also fighting one another, at least with words. George Habash, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, last week declared coexistence with Jordan impossible and openly called for Hussein's overthrow. Fatah, which seeks harmony with Hussein as the safest course, suggested that the Popular Front was giving the King's men a pretext to attack guerrilla groups.

On one issue, however, the fedayeen seemed united. When the semi-official Cairo newspaper Al Ahram claimed that the guerrillas "unanimously" supported efforts by Egypt and Jordan to achieve a settlement with Israel, the major fedayeen organizations brusquely denied the story. Fedayeen spokesmen agreed that if the Arab governments wanted to negotiate with Israel to recover their lost territories, they would have no objection --as long as the negotiations did not impinge on Palestinian rights.

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