Arafat: As Patient as the Camel

One Arab group with which Israel refuses to negotiate is the Palestine Liberation Organization. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan insists that the Palestinians have lost their rights because of terrorism carried out by Al-Fatah and other fedayeen groups. "I will never negotiate with Yasser Arafat," says Golda Meir flatly of the man who founded Al-Fatah and heads the P.L.O. Last week in a rare interview, Arafat, 43, discussed the volatile Middle East with TIME Correspondent Spencer Davidson in Beirut.

Arafat seems obsessed with the CIA, which he automatically blames for almost any imaginable wrongdoing. He boasts that in its ninth year the Palestinian revolution is thriving "in spite of a bloc of enemies represented by international Zionism, international imperialism, especially the CIA, and Arab agents in this area. There is an Arab proverb, 'Nobody can hide the sun with his hand.' We are living whether Moshe Dayan wishes it or not. I don't see any course for the Palestinians except armed struggle to restore their rights. The Palestinian people have waited 25 years for the execution of resolutions by the U.N. Security Council. They gain nothing from all these resolutions but more and more dispersion and misery. Unfortunately, we are treated by the U.N. as statistics."

Other points made by Arafat in the interview:

FEDAYEEN OPERATIONS. I believe that military operations against Israel and the Zionists abroad could achieve certain gains, could lead to political discussion and diplomatic means to greater gains. Needless to say, we should distinguish between military operations in the occupied land and operations against Israelis abroad. We are concerned that our action should be a military action and not aimed against civilians.

ISRAELI STRATEGY. There is a Zionist-American conspiracy to liquidate the Palestinian people physically. Golda Meir is annoyed -and she declares this arrogantly -by the number of Palestinian babies born daily in the occupied land. Yet not a single voice in the world has been raised to condemn such a declaration. Does the world know that Israel has demolished 8,000 houses on the West Bank and 11,000 houses in the Gaza Strip? But our people refuse to be liquidated, to face the same destiny as red Indians in the U.S.

U.S. POLICY. For 25 years, its only concern has been support for Israel -militarily, politically, financially and through the media. As if the U.S. sees nothing in the area but Israel. Certainly this policy treads on the interests of the American people. As a result of Israeli blackmail, U.S. policy does not help the interests of the Middle East. It helps get the Jewish vote in the U.S. and Jewish election contributions. Obviously this blackmail is eventually paid for by the ordinary American taxpayer. It is true that this U.S. support has changed the balance of power in the area in Israel's interest. But I ask: For how long will you be able to guarantee such a balance? Did American military supremacy in Viet Nam and Korea prove enough to guarantee complete and final separation? You Americans always picture the Arab with a camel. We are as patient as that camel. That's why we believe that the historical imperative is on our side. Americans should free themselves from Zionist blackmail and intelligence reports for the sake of their own interests. They should not be Ugly Americans. They should look to their future. As a big power, American standards should be moral standards. As an admirer of Abraham Lincoln, I would hope that Americans remember Lincoln's ideas concerning freedom and justice and his ideas about segregation.

KHARTOUM SLAYINGS. The CIA has published in more than one American paper a story about my relations with Black September. It reached such a point that they assumed in the Washington Post that I gave an order to some Palestinians in the embassy [to kill two American diplomats]. Certainly the CIA knows that this is a lie. I did my best. I think that if Nixon had not submitted to Golda Meir's blackmail -she was in the States at the time -and had done as he did with other prisoners in Latin America [trading their freedom for that of political prisoners], you would have avoided the tragedy that happened in Khartoum. But he sacrificed his ambassador because he submitted to Israeli blackmail. I want to ask a question. Why was this declaration made by the CIA in the press, and why was there then another declaration mentioning my colleagues in the leadership who were assassinated? Was that to justify their assassination and the conspiracy [the CIA is] plotting against me?

BLACK SEPTEMBER. It is a phenomenon that appeared after the savage massacres in Jordan against the Palestinian revolution and people. We lost 25,000 killed and wounded, and 8,000 were jailed. It was, and still is, an overwhelming tragedy for all our people on the Jordan East Bank. This massacre could not help producing such a phenomenon. It is quite evident that Israel and the CIA were the originators of this massacre in Jordan.

MIDDLE EAST OUTLOOK. I don't foresee anything except more suffering and sacrifice. We are now facing an arrogant enemy drunk on the victory he gained in 1967. An enemy who is publicly proud of the recent action [in raiding Beirut] against our people, our leaders, even our women.

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