Backgro
A Common Enemy
T
----VGLAb DAVIS
"',,.REIGN CORRESPONDENT
Arafat's recent
ioves have shed
Ight on a new
:Nrinkle ... that
Egypt and Israel
e working
:ether against
'e threat of
from Iran.
,
.
he emerging threat
from Iran — to its
neighbors across the
Gulf and the wider
Arab world as well as Israel
— has radically altered the
terms of the debate in the
Middle East.
It has also shifted the
focus, concentrating the
minds of pro-Western Arab
leaders, notably in Egypt
and Jordan, who can clearly
detect Iranian fingerprints
on the hands that are
destabilizing their regimes
and reaching for power.
One result has been to
cause an alliance of Egypt
and Israel against the com-
mon threat of Iran.
This came to light after
PLO leader Yassir Arafat,
caught between Hamas fun-
damentalists in the ter-
ritories and Palestinian
radicals in Lebanon, let it be
known last week that he had
informed Egyptian president
Hasni Mubarak that he
would either step down as
PLO leader or pull the Pa-
lestinians out of the peace
process.
A source was quoted in a
Saudi newspaper as saying
that lack of progress at the
peace talks had made Mr.
Arafat draw "closer to the
hardliners in the Palestin-
ian leadership. If there is no
tangible progress in the
negotiations," the source
added, "he may call a Pales-
tinian popular conference or
another meeting of the
Palestine National Council
(the Palestiniar•-parlia-
ment), at which he will
either resign or announce
the PLO's withdrawal from
the peace process."
Mr. Arafat's sensitive
antennae clearly had been
tweaked by the simmering
dissension within his own
ranks and, more recently, by
reports that Iran was offer-
ing serious aid to the Hamas
movement, which is thought
to command an outright
majority in the Gaza Strip
and about 40 percent sup-
port in the West Bank.
Mr. Arafat is being pulled
back from the talks by the
radicals and some of his own
close aides who fear embark-
ing on serious negotiations
with Israel. But he is being
pushed toward a deal by the
more pragmatic Palestin-
ians from within the ter-
ritories who are actually sit-
ting at the negotiating table.
So far, he has been able to
Palestinian workers await news of progress in the peace process.
obfuscate, but that is becom-
ing increasingly difficult for
him to continue.
In other circumstances,
the judicious leak of Mr.
Arafat's threat to resign or
pull out of the peace talks
might have been interpreted
as a piece of theater design-
ed to stampede the Ameri-
cans and the Egyptians into
leaning on Israel and extrac-
ting further concessions.
Now he must know there is a
good chance they will call
his bluff.
His military option is neg-
ligible and he must also
know that he is running out
of diplomatic road: He will
not quickly mend his fences
with the Gulf states; he
cannot hope for more sym-
pathy from Bill Clinton than
he received from George
Bush; he remains frozen out
of Europe; Egypt's President
Mubarak is far more con-
cerned about the looming
threat from Iran.
In addition to his
withdraw-or-resign threat to
Mr. Mubarak this month,
Mr. Arafat made a bid to in-
gratiate himself with the
Egyptian leader by passing
on two juicy tidbits of intel-
ligence: Some 800 Egyptians
were currently undergoing
military training at a camp
near the Iranian town of
Marshad, and Arab fighters
who had helped the Mu-
jahedin win power in
Afghanistan were now in
Iran preparing to embark on
a campaign of regional
subversion.
The effect of the news on
the Egyptian leader was
electric, but his reaction was
just the opposite of that in-
tended by Mr. Arafat. Israeli
Foreign Minister Shimon
Peres was immediately
summoned to Cairo last
Mr. Arafat has said
he would step
down as head of
the PLO or pull the
Palestinians out of
the peace process.
week, but his talks with Mr.
Mubarak, according to
Israeli sources, were not
about exploring some new
wrinkle that would satisfy
the Palestinians.
Rather, Mr. Mubarak pre-
sented Mr. Peres with a
revolutionary proposal that
would coopt Israel into a
united Middle East front
capable of confronting and
defeating the common
enemy, Iran, before the
Islamic Republic over-
whelmed the region and
realized its territorial, re-
ligious and political ambi-
tions.
Mr. Peres appeared to con-
firm that the Palestinian
issue had been dwarfed by
the threat of a resurgent
Iran when he told Israel
Radio that he and Mr. Mu-
barak had indeed discussed
Iran's broader challenge to
the peace process and
revealed that they were in-
itiating monthly meetings
between senior members of
their governments.
According to the Israeli
analyst, the new approach
will involve the development
of multilateral relations
between Israel and the Arab
world with the aim of
creating a climate of recon-
ciliation and muting the
Iranian-inspired atmosphere
of jihad (holy war).
If this fails, as a result of
opposition from Syria or the
Palestinians, Israel and
Egypt are expected to simply
override the multilateral
approach.
This new beginning is
regarded as an acknowl-
edgement by Egypt that
radical Islam rather than
expansionist Zionism poses
the greater threat to the
Arabs.
It may prove to be one of
the most important devel-
opments in the history of the
Jewish state.
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