Geneva: the Palestinian Problem

U.S. policy is shifting on whether to deal with the P.L.O.

"It is obvious to me that there can be no Middle Eastern peace settlement without adequate Palestinian representation." So said President Carter at his Washington press conference, echoing a theme he had stated many times before.

But then Carter went a significant step further. If the Palestine Liberation Organization endorsed United Nations resolutions that implicitly accept Israel's right to exist, he promised, "then we will begin to meet with them and to search for some accommodation and some reasonable approach to the Palestinian question."

Arabs hailed the President's statement; Israelis were furious. In Jerusalem's view, Carter was backing away from a longstanding agreement that the U.S.

would never deal with the P.L.O. as long as it was committed to the destruction of Israel. More than that, the Israelis detected that they were coming under heavy pressure from their closest ally in the world--an ally that was significantly modifying its policy in the Middle East.

The Israeli perception is basically correct. Ever since his Clinton, Mass., call last March for a Palestinian "homeland," Jimmy Carter has become more and more convinced that the Palestinian issue is, as President Hafez Assad of Syria calls it, "the mother question" in the Middle East.

Carter also feels that answering that question is of vital importance to America's "national interests" and the key to a successful resumption of peace negotiations in Geneva.

At week's end, the U.S. and the Soviet Union, as co-chairmen of the Geneva talks, pledged to get discussions under way before the end of the year. In a statement issued at the United Nations, the U.S. joined the U.S.S.R. for the first time in a commitment "ensuring the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people"--a formulation that was bound to further enrage the Israelis. On the other hand, the Soviets joined the Americans in accepting the Israeli contention that a settlement in the Middle East must mean more than just an end to belligerency. It must also involve, the Soviets agreed, "establishment of normal peaceful relations."

Working out a formula that would allow some Palestinian presence at Geneva was the focus all week long of intense diplomatic bargaining as Israel's Moshe Dayan and Arab foreign ministers shuttled between Washington and New York City. Israel got in the first blow by announcing on Sunday that 64-year-old Premier Menachem Begin--who later in the week was hospitalized with exhaustion--and his Cabinet had accepted that Palestinians, but not known members of the P.L.O., could be present at the opening ceremonies in Geneva as members of a pan-Arab delegation, but only within the Jordanian party. After that, the Israelis would negotiate separately with the Arab states directly involved in the talks --Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Palestinians could attend those talks as members of Jordan's delegation.

The Israeli announcement pleased no one, least of all the U.S. While Washington had indeed been pushing Jerusalem to accept a pan-Arab delegation at the talks, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance crisply noted that the Cabinet had "added conditions that do not accurately reflect our views." Egyptian Foreign Minister Ismael Fahmy called the Israeli proposal "a non-starter" and flatly warned that "there will be no Geneva without the P.L.O." The Palestinians sent a 15-man delegation, headed by de facto Foreign Minister Farouk Kaddoumi, to New York to attend the opening of the U.N.

General Assembly session. Said Kaddoumi of the Israeli decision: "We reject it, full stop."

President Carter would undoubtedly prefer to deal directly with the P.L.O., rather than through Arab intermediaries, but cannot without some counterpromise by the Palestinians. For one thing, Israel's friends in Congress and elsewhere would be outraged if the U.S. were to talk with the organization before it accepts U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338,* which implicitly recognize Israel's right to exist. For another, the U.S. is still formally bound by one of Henry Kissinger's lesser-known secret commitments. In an appendix to the second Egyptian-Israeli Sinai accord of Sept. 4,1975, the former Secretary of State agreed on behalf of the U.S. that Washington would not acknowledge the P.L.O. or negotiate with it until it recognized Israel's existence. The Administration cannot easily break that pledge, even though it is acutely sensitive to Arab criticism that by ignoring the P.L.O. up to now, Washington has shown bias toward Israel. Asked Egypt's Fahmy last week: "How could you have mortgaged your future to a piece of paper like that?"

What seems to be a reasonable idea hi Washington looks like sheer madness in Jerusalem. Hawks or doves, Israelis are united in backing the Begin government's contention that negotiating with the P.L.O. would be the first step toward the destruction of Israel. Last month the Knesset (parliament) overwhelmingly passed a bill--92 to 4, with six abstentions by dissenting liberals--declaring that "the organization called P.L.O. ...

is not a discussion partner for Israel in any Middle East peace negotiations." In an angry, impassioned speech, Begin compared negotiating with the fedayeen organization to "someone approaching me and presenting me with a sharp knife which he asks me politely to thrust into my heart. I ask, 'Why should I do such a thing?' And he tells me, 'For the sake of the friendship that exists between us.

For the sake of peace.' The sake of peace?

Peace without me?"

The Israelis have a strong argument.

As Begin reminded the Knesset, the P.L.O. has never repudiated its national charter, which calls for the "liberation" of all Palestine and the elimination of Zionism. Nor has the organization renounced the strategy of terror that led to the murder of innocent civilians at Munich and Ma'alot. If Israel were to permit the creation of a Palestinian state on the occupied West Bank and Gaza --something it is not prepared to do --there is a clear danger that the fedayeen would use those enclaves for further attacks on Israel proper. Moreover, the P.L.O. is hopelessly divided in its leadership; even if a Palestinian ministate was formally bound by treaties to live in peace with Israel, there is no guarantee that rejectionist guerrillas would obey the rules.

The Arabs offer several powerful counterarguments. How can Jerusalem demand that the P.L.O. accept Resolution 242 when Israel is flagrantly violating it by creating new settlements in the occupied territories? The Palestinians, moreover, insist that 242 is unacceptable, since it refers to them only as refugees and not as a people with national rights.

Defenders of the P.L.O. concede that while the organization has not yet modified the strident rhetoric of its 13-year-old charter, recent deliberations and decisions have become more moderate in tone. At its March meeting in Cairo, for instance, the Palestine National Council renewed its call for a state on any soil given up by Israel, but dropped a clause added to a similar resolution in 1974 that designated such a state as a base for further struggle against Israel. Time and again, P.L.O. leaders, including Yasser Arafat, have said they would settle for a Palestinian entity on any Arab territory given up by Israel--implying a willingness to coexist, albeit reluctantly, with the Jewish state. To promise more without getting a quid pro quo would be difficult for Arafat, who has a diffused and unwieldy constituency to satisfy.

Some Middle East experts argue that a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza would be more of a safeguard for Israel than a hazard. For one thing, such a state would not be entirely free. Even P.L.O. leaders now talk approvingly about having formal links with Jordan, whose ruler, King Hussein, desperately wants peace with Israel. Moreover, it is clearly in the interests of moderate Arab nations that a dangerously radical regime does not emerge in any Palestinian state. A radical Palestine would be as likely to stir up unrest in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, the Arabs' principal bankroller, as in Israel.

Says one observer: "The Saudis want a Palestinian state, but they wouldn't give a nickel to a radical one." Deeply fearful of Russian influence in the Middle East, the Saudis would almost certainly insist that the defense, finance and foreign trade of a Palestinian state be monitored or controlled by established Arab states.

The U.S. is irrevocably committed to Israel's survival. Another Middle East war--potentially more devastating than all four previous ones--would be a cruel tragedy for Israelis and Arabs alike and a crushing blow to American interests in the area. Yet such a war remains a distinct, though distant possibility if the U.S.

peace initiative should fail. Carter believes, as do the Arabs, that no meaningful peace talks can take place without the Palestinians--a reality that even the Israelis cannot now avoid. Thus the key questions remain: Who will represent the Palestinians, and how can the Israelis and the Palestinians negotiate openly and fairly with each other? The Arabs think they have one answer--the P.L.O. Washington and Jerusalem face the dilemma of consenting to that response--or finding another acceptable one.

*Both resolutions--passed in 1967 and in 1973--call for "secure borders" for all countries in the area and the return to the Arabs of occupied territory.

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