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he Palestine Libera-
tion Organization's
threat to abandon its
"peace offensive" unless
Israel stops settling Soviet
Jews in the occupied ter-
ritories is the clearest sign
yet of the profound unease
permeating PLO head-
quarters in Tunis.
The most pressing problem
facing Yassir Arafat and
other PLO leaders is their
credibility. They have
singularly failed to deliver
tangible political gains to
their frustrated constituents
in the territories as a reward
for the 26-month-old in-
tifada.
Not only is the PLO in
danger of losing control of its
foot-soldiers, who are
escalating their attacks on
"collaborators," but secular
Palestinians are also suffer-
ing a continuing hem-
morhage of support to the
more radical, less com-
promising Hamas funda-
mentalist movement in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Palestinian defiance of
Arafat's orders to halt the
killing of "collaborators"
was most graphically il-
lustrated last month when,
for the first time since the
start of the intifada in
December 1987, more Pales-
tinians were killed by fellow
Palestinians (33) than by
Israeli soldiers (18).
According to Israeli
Defense Minister Yitzhak
Rabin, a total of 181 Palesti-
nians have now been exec-
uted as "collaborators," of
whom 163 were killed in the
past year alone. Rabin
pointed out that the vast
majority of those killed had
had no connection with the
Israeli authorities.
"I know of no reason why
they were put to death with
such cruelty," he said.
One of the most recent vic-
tims was Mohammed
Khatatbeh, a 53-year-old
shepherd from Beit Furik,
near the West Bank town of
Nablus, who reportedly con-
fessed to his youthful inter-
rogators that he had acted as
an informer for the Israelis
more than 20 years ago.
After his confession was
broadcast from the village
mosque at dawn, Khatatbeh
was brutally beaten by his
captors, spit on by his 14-
year-old son and then hack-
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LENOE17
HELEN AND IRVING POSNER
will celebrate their
50th
Wedding Anniversary
on March 4 with their children
(Rebecca, Jonathan, David and
Matthew) and immediate family.
We will always treasure
the love and adventure
we have shored with
our friends and relatives.
38
The Big Uneasy For. PLO's Chief:
Intifada Troops Seeing No Gains
FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 1990
T
Yassir Arafat:
Out of touch?
ed to death with an axe. His
body was later displayed in
the village square, decorated
with Palestinian flags.
Three days later, a second
villager from Beit Furik was
stabbed to death for his
alleged "collaboration."
"They had to die because
they betrayed the people,"
declared one village activist.
"Obviously there are more
collaborators still to be
found in the village and they
will meet the same fate."
The terrorization of the
village, however, has
stopped. Shortly after the se-
cond killing, two unmarked
vans drove up to the local
health clinic. Neither the
vans nor their female pas-
sengers gave any cause for
alarm until the passengers
— Israeli soldiers disguised
as women — entered the
building and arrested the
three ringleaders of the Pa-
lestinian death squad who
had taken refuge inside.
"I will drink the blood of
the betrayers," vowed Um
Yusuf, sister of one of the
captured men. "Those
responsible for my brother's
arrest will not be allowed to
escape."
Recently, a 17-year-old Pa-
lestinian, who admitted on
Israel Television that he had
been involved in more than a
dozen killings of
"collaborators," drove home
the point: "With all due
respect to Abu Ammar
[Arafat's nom-de-guerre], he
is a politician and does not
know what is going on in the
field."
The continued blood-
letting, in open defiance of
Arafat's explicit orders, has
brought on an acute bout of
indigestion for PLO leaders
in their faraway head-
quarters. They might not
have been abandoned by the
young Palestinians "in the
field," but they are having to
run harder than ever to keep
up.
With many of his followers
in the territories deserting
to the fundamentalists and
others now so impatient that
they are flagrantly flaunting
his orders, Yassir Arafat has
cause to keep a very close
eye on his watch.
While he continues to ad-
dress Western audiences —
even American Jewish
leaders — in moderate, mea-
sured tones, it is clear that
he is now engaged in a des-
perate race against time to
keep both his authority in-
tact and his "peace offen-
sive" alive.
Realizing once again that
he risks being left behind, as
he was at the start of the in-
tifada, the PLO leader now
appears to be moving to ac-
commodate the excesses of
the hot-heads who are
leading the violence "in the
field."
Even as Secretary of State
James Baker was seeking to
coax Israeli Prime Minister
Yitzhak Shamir out of his
corner and closer to the ne-
gotiating table last week,
Arafat was already prepar-
ing his retreat.
The PLO chief left the task
to Bassam Abu Sharif, his
chief adviser and architect of
his diplomatic initiative
which led to a formal dia-
logue between the PLO and
the United States in
December 1988.
Abu Sharif has described
the supposed settlement of
Soviet Jews in the occupied
territories as "an act of war
against the Palestinian peo-
ple and the Arab nation"
that would provoke "acts of
war" by the Palestinians.
But the Israeli govern-
ment does not encourage the
new Soviet immigrants to
settle in the West Bank.
Israel is more concerned
with populating depressed
development towns. As a
result, less than 1 percent of
the new immigrants have
settled in the territories.
It also should be noted that
the PLO, despite all its rhet-
oric, has never renounced
"acts of war" against Israel.
But the substance of Abu
Sharifs remarks was less