Palestinians: A New Unity

Arafat's eye is on New York

While Israel's Menachem Begin was diigging in deeper on the West Bank issue, off in Beirut his Palestinian foes last week took a big if unheralded step toward peace. TIME has learned that after extensive negotiations--urged on them, for the most part, by Soviet diplomats--the so-called Palestinian "rejectionists" have decided to end their defiant stand against peace on any terms with Israel and agree with the larger Palestine Liberation Organization on the goal of securing an independent state on the West Bank and in Gaza. The agreement on a limited but attainable Palestine clears the way for the establishment of such a state--whenever the disputed territories can be wrested or negotiated back from Israel.

The deal was crucial because the Palestinians are at the core of a Middle East peace settlement. The continuing holdout of the rejectionists, notably the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, headed by hard-lining George Habash, had muddled the Palestinian position. Although the Israelis still accuse them of it, most Palestinian leaders have long since given up the idea of driving Israel into the sea. Lately, even their hazy notion of a secular state of Palestine embracing Arabs, Jews and Christians has also faded (although Israel's Begin, if he manages to annex the West Bank and its 650,000 Arabs, may yet accomplish something like that).

In Cairo last March, the Palestine National Council, composed of leaders of organizations representing 3.2 million Palestinians scattered around the world, voted to establish an independent state on whatever portions of the "national soil" could be liberated from Israel--meaning, essentially, the West Bank and Gaza. Then only the rejectionists continued to hold out for a war to the end with the Israelis. Acknowledging a radical change from that position last week, one of the rejectionists explained: "We feel this is the time for the Palestinians to stand together."

The next step in the Palestinian strategy, reported TIME'S Dean Brelis and Abu Said Abu Rish from Beirut, is a p.r. blitz focusing on Israel as the big obstacle to a Middle East settlement. "We're not blocking peace," says a P.L.O. spokesman. "Israel is." To press that point, P.L.O. Leader Yasser Arafat plans to fly to New York next month (aboard an Algerian-lent 707 jet) to push for a new United Nations resolution--to be introduced by an as yet undesignated Arab delegation--that will call for the recognition of Israel in exchange for solid guarantees of a Palestinian state.

The Arafat resolution, which is still being drafted in Beirut, is intended to exploit President Carter's call for a Palestinian homeland last March in Clinton, Mass. At that time, Carter also demanded that the Palestinians accept, without amendment, the celebrated U.N. Resolution 242 of 1967, which sought to end Middle East hostilities by trading a return to prewar borders for Israel's right to exist within defensible boundaries. The Arafat resolution will meet Carter's injunction by explicitly accepting 242, but it will also include his very words on the Palestinian homeland. Says a P.L.O. spokesman: "We would be very much surprised if the U.S. vetoes the President's own language."

Indeed, the Arabs hope that Washington, which has been following the Palestinian moves from a distance, may decide not to veto the Arafat proposal but abstain instead. They are encouraged by the fact that the U.S., which has held Palestinian groups at arm's length until they recognized Israel, has begun unofficially at least to bend this policy to make some contacts. During his visit to Geneva last month, for instance, U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young met and briefly chatted with Daud Barakat, the P.L.O.'s representative there.

With the chances for actually winning statehood seemingly stronger than ever, the P.L.O. is busily polishing up a moderate political image. It has come out against another Arab oil embargo as a way of achieving Palestinian goals; it is also busy purging "undesirables"--meaning Palestinians who profited from looting or black-marketeering during the Lebanese civil war--from its ranks. Rejectionists who cannot accept the idea of Israeli statehood are also free to leave for Libya to work for Muammar Gaddafi, the last remaining Arab leader who still holds the Israel-into-the-sea view. In fact, they have nowhere else to turn.

Arafat, who will probably head whatever Palestinian state may eventually emerge, still wears the kaffiyeh headdress and battle fatigues that are his trademark. But his bodyguards, who once sported beards and Kalashnikov assault rifles, are clean-shaven now and resemble Carter's Secret Service, down to the radio earpieces through which they receive orders when Arafat travels. The P.L.O. has even sent a team of potential ambassadors to East Germany to be drilled in diplomacy. But amid the diplomatic moderation, the Palestinians intend to keep pressure on Israel. The P.L.O. continues to train young fighters; Arafat at a recent graduation ceremony urged them to raise the red, black, white and green Palestinian flag in Jerusalem itself, an idea which Israel is scarcely likely to accept. The P.L.O. last week quickly took credit for a bus bombing in the Israeli town of Afula, in which eight people were hurt--the 50th such incident this year.

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