that while Arafat remains
essentially unchallenged as
the symbol of the Palesti-
nian struggle, his message is
losing credibility, with much
of the ground being lost to
the Islamic fundamentalist
Hamas and Islamic Jihad
movements.
The fundamentalists have
two central arguments with
Arafat: In philosophical
terms, they reject his stated
goal of establishing a
"secular, democratic state";
in strictly practical terms,
they reject his political con-
cessions, notably his accep-
tance of UN resolutions 242
and 338, which implicitly
acknowledge Israel's right to
exist in peace.
"We remind everyone," a
recent Hamas communique
declared "that the Palesti-
nian people have rejected
the Partition Resolution and
all the UN resolutions which
laid the basis of the enemy
state."
In an effort to halt the ris-
ing danger, Israel outlawed
the llamas movement three
months ago, a move which
has served, if anything, to
cloak the fundamentalists in
respectability and draw even
more support to their side.
According to estimates by
the Israel Defense Forces,
the fundamentalist Palesti-
nians, who refuse to even
entertain the notion of an
independent Jewish state,
would win as much as 30
percent of the popular vote
(against 65 percent for the
PLO) if free elections were
held in the territories now.
And their strength, accor-
ding to the assessment, will
grow if the political
stalemate continues.
For this, and other
reasons, Arafat faces a
dilemma every bit as acute
as that confronting Israeli
Prime Minister Yitzhak
Shamir as Secretary of State
James Baker pushes the
Middle East barrow closer to
the Israeli-inspired plan for
Palestinian elections in the
territories.
"Imagine a situation
where llamas won 50 per
cent of the vote," said Dr.
Asher Susser a specialist in
Palestinian affairs and head
of the Center for Middle East
Studies at Tel Aviv Univer-
sity. "Who would be the sole
representative of the
Palestinian people then?
That is why the PLO dreads
the idea of elections.
"The dialogue with the
United States is critically
important to the PLO for
historic reasons," Susser
said, "but at the same time
the PLO is increasingly dis-
appointed that the
Americans haven't delivered
Israel and there is growing
pressure on Arafat to stop
the dialogue, which is seen
as heading down the slip-
pery slope of capitulation."
While the intifada has
served the purpose of return-
ing the Palestinian cause to
international prominence, it
also contains serious traps
for the PLO leader as peace
prospects, however
nebulous, loom in the future:
The PLO's only political
asset is the intifada, which is
why Arafat will never agree
to stop it as a precondition
for talks with Israel. If the
intifada ends, he will be in
dire straits. At the same
time, the PLO must be com-
ing to the realization that
there are limits to the effec-
tiveness of the intifada.
"There will be no Palesti-
nian state unless the PLO
succeeds in bringing about a
total upheaval in Israel's
domestic political scene,"
adds Susser. "The PLO has
got left-wing friends in
Israel, but it has failed to
come to trrms with the fact
that it must address the
fears of the broad mass of
Israelis if it is to make any
progress toward its goals."
For a mixture of political
and psychological reasons,
this may be beyond the abil-
ity of the PLO. Indeed, polls
show that Israeli attitudes
are hardening against any
compromise with the
Palestinians.
Two years after the start of
the intifada, the Palesti-
nians are still as far as ever
from dislodging the Israelis
from the occupied ter
ritories, from rolling back
the defeat that the Arabs
sustained in the 1967 Six-
Day War and from achieving
their dream of independent
Palestine.
Beyond the plethora of
statistics, however, the in-
tifada has achieved a
critically important change,
both in Palestinian percep-
tions and in the minds of the
international community: It
has, irrevocably and irrever-
sibly, established the na-
tional identity of the
Palestinians.
It has effectively quashed
any lingering Israeli hopes
that the Palestinians, who
share a commnn language,
religion, tradition and
culture with other Arabs,
might eventually give up on
their quest for a unique na-
tional identity and simply
blend into the hostile Arab
background.
The intifada has also
damaged Israel, perhaps ir-
reperably, in the eyes of the
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