PERSIAN GULF CRISIS IV/0 STEPS BACK Palestinian support for Saddam Hussein has sidetracked any impetus for a West Bank state, at least for now HELEN DAVIS Foreign Correspondent he most senior Pales- tinian leader in the Israeli-occupied ter- ritories, Faisal Husseini, hastily summoned the media to his home one night last week to deny that he had described the Iraqi missile at- tacks on Israel as a "blessed thing." The reason for the urgency in insisting that he had been misquoted by an Italian magazine was the fear that, with emotions and tensions running high, the Israeli au- thorities would seize the op- portunity to jail or deport him. Whether the quotation was accurate or not cut little ice with Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek, who had re- cently engaged Mr. Husseini in a political dialogue. "Even if you did not say the things attributed to you," the mayor wrote to Mr. Husseini, "I was not sur- prised by them. This is not a matter of phrasing but a line of thought which, to my sorrow, is held by a number of Palestinian people." At the same time, Shulamit Aloni, civil liber- ties leader and a powerful advocate of Palestinian rights, cabled her displeasure to Mr. Husseini: "All the dialogues between us and the Palestinians become irrelevant when the tyrant of Baghdad does everything to destroy us and you make common cause with him." To reinforce the disap- pointment of those Israelis who were still hoping that a tiny window of opportunity still remained for Palestin- ian-Jewish co-existence, Pa- lestinian intellectual and ideologue Sari Nusseibeh was detained three days later. According to the Israeli authorities, Mr. Nusseibeh, a professor of medieval Islamic philosophy at Bir Zeit University who is close- ly associated with Yassir Arafat's Fatah wing of the PLO, had supplied informa- tion about the missile at- tacks on Israel to Iraqi intel- ligence. Details about precisely where the missiles land is subject to strict censorship as such knowledge would allow Iraq to recalibrate their systems of terror. According to Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr. Nusseibeh had as good as guided the Iraqi missiles to their targets. He was sentenced to six months in prison, a term since cut back to three mon- ths by a judge who ruled that the army had no reason to hold him any longer than the duration of the Persian Gulf war. The judge decided that would not be longer than three months. While insisting that Mr. Nusseibeh's detention was based on security rather than political grounds, Israeli officials regretted that he could neither be charged nor tried: their evidence, they said, would expose their sources of in- formation and could en- danger lives. Palestinians in the oc- cupied territories, who threatened an armed upris- ing against Israel if the allied coalition attacked Iraq, have been under cons- tant curfew since the start of the Gulf war and it is difficult to gauge their mood with any degree of precision. All indications, however, suggest that their support for Iraq and their ardor for its leader have been strengthened by the missile attacks on Israeli population centers. While the Palestinians have overwhelmingly obeyed the curfew and heed- ed the Israeli warning that "in war, the rules are diff- erent," they have continued voicing their pro-Iraqi sen- timents. Thousands have, quite lit- erally, been shouting it from the rooftops. "Allahu Akhbar" (God is great) is the cry that goes up throughout the West Bank as Iraq's Scud missiles hurtle through the night sky toward Tel Aviv and Haifa. They say their fear of be- ing hurt is less than their joy at seeing the Israelis en- dangered. Politically and econ- omically, the Palestinians are on the ropes. The loss of remittances from Palestin- ian workers in the Gulf alone is calculated to be around $1.4 billion a year. Whatever spin they put on it, the Palestinians cannot escape the paradox that while they passionately sup- port Saddam. Hussein's in- vasion of Kuwait, they op- pose, with equal passion, Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Their predicament has been boldly underscored by the stream of European poli- ticians, traditionally the most passionate champions of the Palestinian cause, who have made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem over the past two weeks to declare their solidarity with Israel. Not only was the Palestin- ian case not made but both the Germans and the Dutch stated clearly that PLO leader Arafat, by urging his followers to enlist in Saddam Hussein's army, had dis- qualified himself from the peace process. Britain has pointedly ended its in- sistence on PLO participa- tion in discussions about the future dispensation of the territories. All that, of course, may change when the dust has settled in the Gulf. In the meantime, however, the Pa- lestinians, like their Iraqi THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS 15