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Is Intifada's 'Father' Husseini
Israel's Best Hope For Peace?
HELEN DAVIS
Foreign Correspondent
F
aisal Husseini, widely
considered to be the
most senior Palestine
Liberation Organization
leader in the occupied ter-
ritories, was released from
Kfar Yona jail Sunday and
now represents Israel's best
hope for putting a lid on the
Palestinian uprising.
Husseini, 48-year-old scion
of a well-known Palestinian
family and son of Abdel-
Khadar Husseini, hero of the
Arab world's 1948 attempt to
crush the fledgling Jewish
state, is regarded by Israeli
authorities as the central
figure in planning and in-
stigating the uprising.
He has spent most of the
14-month-old intifada under
administrative arrest, a
euphemism for detention
without trial, and his release
followed a week of intensive
negotiations with General
Shmuel Goren, Israel's coor-
dinator of activities in the ter-
ritories and a senior aide to
Defense Minister Yitzhak
Rabin.
The talks are understood to
have centered on Rabin's pro-
posals, outlined two weeks
ago, for elections in the oc-
cupied territories, last held in
1976, coupled with an ex-
panded form of autonomy.
According to the Rabin
plan, this would allow the
Palestinians to elect their
own representatives to
negotiate with Israel. In ex-
change, the defense minister
is demanding a halt to the
intifada.
It is understood that Rabin
has agreed not to raise objec-
tions to Husseini traveling
abroad to discuss the pro-
posals with PLO leaders on
condition that he does not
openly declare that he will
meet with PLO officials.
According to one Israeli
source, PLO chairman Yassir
Arafat confirmed to the
foreign ministers of Spain,
Greece and France in Madrid
at the weekend that he had
received "messages from
Israeli political leaders."
On his release from jail,
near the coastal resort city of
Netanya, Husseini refused to
confirm that he had, in fact,
met with Goren, but he con-
ceded that there was a "posi-
tive" element in recent Israeli
pronouncements, which re-
flected Israel's implied
acknowledgement that the in-
tifada was a political problem
requiring a political solution.
He did not rule out the
possibility of local elections or
the idea of autonomy — on
condition that these repre-
sented clear steps toward
Palestinian self-determina-
tion and did not require the
Palestinians to modify their
demand for full independence.
At the same time, however,
he rejected Rabin's public pro-
posals, as well as his call for
Yitzhak Rabin:
`A routine dialogue'
a dialogue with Palestinians
in the territories.
Such talks, insisted Hus-
seini, were no substitute for
direct negotiations with PLO
leaders abroad: "When we are
talking about the Palestinian
people," he said, "I mean all
the Palestinian people, inside
and outside."
For his part, Rabin attempt-
ed to play down the
significance of the Goren-
Husseini encounters, describ-
ing them as "a routine
dialogue." He said he took "a
grave view" of the fact that
news of the meetings were
leaked to the media,
One Israeli source described
the tough statements by both
men as "political bluster"
designed to draw a veil over
serious attempts by the two
sides to find ways out of the
morass.
The big question now is how
much Prime Minister Yit-
zhak Shamir and his chief
lieutenant, Foreign Minister
Moshe Arens, knew about the
Rabin-inspired negotiations
and the extent to which these
moves have their blessing.
Shamir, who has been fac-
ing mounting pressure from
Jewish settlers in the oc-
cupied territories to hold the
ideological line and to in-
crease military pressure on
the Palestinians to halt the
intifada, has denied any prior
Knowledge of the talks and
has claimed that the Rabin
initiative was a purely per-
sonal affair.
Informed Israeli sources,
however, doubt that the wily
Likud Party leader could
have failed to be aware of the
developments or that he
would have allowed them to
continue if he was indeed op-
posed to raising the trial
balloon.
With George Bush in the
White House and Mikhail
Gorbachev in the Kremlin,
Middle East observers believe
that Israel is likely to face the
diplomatic challenge of its life
in the coming months.
According to the observers,
Washington and Moscow will
have put together a joint Mid-
dle East initiative by next fall
which will not necessarily
favor Israel but which will,
nevertheless, be very hard for
Jerusalem to resist.
"I think they're determined
to do something to break the
deadlock — and they're deter-
mined to do it quickly," noted
one senior source at the week-
end. "The consequences of
failure are too awful for either
Bush or Gorbachev to con-
template."
The observers say that
Israel has two credible op-
tions if it is to extricate itself
from what they believe will be
the toughest diplomatic pre-
dicament in the 41-year
history of the Jewish state.
Jerusalem, they say, must
either bring the intifada to a
complete, decisive end or it
must agree, as Washington
has already agreed, to open a
dialogue with the PLO and
strike a deal with the
Palestinians.
The first is regarded as a
physical impossibility. Not
even Israel's Chief of Staff
Dan Shomron believes there
is a military solution to the
uprising but the second is
regarded as political im-
possibility, with both of
Israel's major political blocs
united in their opposition to
dealing with the PLO.
The developing Husseini
option might, therefore, let
both Shamir and Labor's
Shimon Peres off the hook,
providing the essential fig-
leaf for halting the intifada
and opening a channel of
communication with the
PLO.
A political process with
Israel might also ease a grow-
ing headache for the PLO
leader, who fears that the in-
tifada could be derailed by the