By Holding Out,
The PLO Scored Big
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hile Israel's eyes
were focused on
ceremonies mark-
ing the 50th an-
niversary of the Warsaw
ghetto uprising and Yom
Hashoah, an interesting
development took place in
the Middle East peace
process. Unable to wring
additional concessions out of
Israel as their condition for
returning to the peace talks,
the Palestinians obtained
them instead from their fel-
low Arabs
In Cairo, on Monday, the
PLO received assurances
from Saudi Arabia that it
would resume its financial
aid to the organization that
had been halted as a result
of Yassir Arafat's support
for Iraq in the Gulf War.
The Saudis also pledged to
encourage other Gulf States
to follow suit.
Accompanied by Farouk
Kaddoumi, Feisal al-
Husseini and Hanan
Ashrawi, Mr. Arafat, the
PLO chairman, then flew to
Syria for a meeting with
President Hafez al-Assad.
Such things don't happen to
Chairman Arafat every day.
In fact, in his long career at
the head of the PLO, he has
been imprisoned, shelled,
and expelled by the Syrians,
and his meeting with
President Assad came after
yet another period of being
shunned by Damascus. But
the parley signaled that
Syria would not sign a sepa-
rate peace with Israel and
leave the Palestinians out in
the cold — and is therefore
being hailed as an achieve-
ment for the PLO and its
leader.
Both needed a boost after
the four-month hiatus in the
peace talks, during which
the situation on the Israeli-
Palestinian front deteriorat-
ed appreciably. Publicly, at
least, Israel's contribution
to getting the Palestinians
back to the bargaining table
came in the form of a dis-
tinctly muted reaction to the
PLO's latest stratagem. No
one sounded inordinately
miffed. Certainly no one was
interested in heating up the
already charged atmos-
phere. It's almost as if the
Rabin government were
playing down the mini-
drama as no more than a
hiccup in what at any rate
has come to be perceived as
a drawn-out political belly-
ache.
At the same time, in an
interesting symmetry, the
members of the Palestinian
delegation did their best not
to provoke the Israeli gov-
ernment and concentrated
instead on conveying the
complexity of their position.
"People are complaining
that things are worse now
than before the talks start-
ed," Mr. Husseini explained
in a statement to Israeli state
radio.
Syria would not
leave the
Palestinians out
in the cold.
And as if to underscore
the point, newspapers this
week reported on threats,
by fellow-Palestinians,
against Mr. Husseini and
Saeb Erikat, the negotiator
best remembered for stating
on the eve of the Madrid
Conference — against all
the rules and tacit under-
standings — that the
Palestinian delegation rep-
resented the PLO. Back
then, Mr. - Erikat was
regarded as practically a
Palestinian national hero.
That he is now being threat-
ened for his involvement in
the peace process is a telling
indication of just how angry
mood in the territories has
become.
It's, therefore, not unlike-
ly that the PLO's bid to hold
up the talks was mere
grandstanding aimed as
much at the Palestinians in
the territories as anyone
else. It's no secret that the
organization is practically
broke and has therefore
slashed financial aid to its
supporters that was lavishly
accorded in the first years of
the intifada.
Identification
with
Hamas remains high (up to
45 percent in the territories,
according to Tel Aviv
University professor Shim-
on Shamir.
PLO page 12
E/\