Anglican Cleric, Leaving PLO Leadership, Denounces Abbas as ‘Absolute Traitor’

Shortly after he arrived in the Jordanian capital late last month, Yasser Arafat traveled to a modest home adjoining the sandstone Anglican Church of the Redeemer on yet another fence-mending expedition for the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Seated in the main reception room of the home of Bishop Elia Khouri, the PLO chairman produced a long and emotional letter Khouri had written days before, offering his resignation from the group’s 12-member executive committee.

Khouri is a somewhat retiring cleric and arguably the most moderate member of the PLO leadership. He had found himself at the center of a controversy that surrounded the collapse last month of planned talks between British officials and a Jordanian-Palestinian delegation that included Khouri and another executive committee member, Mohammed Milhem.

With his characteristic flair for drama, Arafat rose from his chair, waved Khouri’s protests aside and tore the resignation letter into little pieces.

Although his resignation was not accepted, Khouri said in an interview that he has decided to “freeze my role in the executive committee,” effectively bowing out of a leadership position in the PLO a little less than a year after the job was thrust on him by the Palestine National Council, the PLO’s parliament in exile.

Although the diplomatic fiasco in London played a central role in his decision, Khouri made it clear that other developments had strongly influenced him, such as the hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro by four Palestinians.

One of the Palestinian bishop’s colleagues on the executive committee, Abul Abbas, has been accused by the United States of masterminding the operation that led to the hijacking, in which an elderly American passenger was murdered.

“Do you want me to sit down at a table alongside Abul Abbas after what happened on the Achille Lauro?” he asked rhetorically. “I won’t do it again in my life. Abul Abbas is an absolute traitor to the PLO cause.”

Despite the recent damage to the international reputation of the PLO and the Palestinian cause, Khouri said he believes that more than 90% of the Palestinian people still favor a peaceful approach toward a settlement with Israel.

“I don’t carry guns, and I don’t believe in terrorism. I’m not ashamed to say it,” said Khouri, who was seated in the rectory of his church in a pinstriped suit, purple clerical shirt and a large silver cross tucked neatly in his watch pocket.

He went on to say that a small group within the PLO leadership is working to destroy last February’s agreement between Arafat and King Hussein of Jordan, which committed both leaders to pursue a joint peace initiative.

Khouri, assistant bishop of the Anglican church’s Jerusalem diocese, was deported by the Israeli authorities in 1969 from Ramallah, on the occupied West Bank of the Jordan River.

An Anglican priest at the time, he was accused of sending explosives to the British Consulate, driving terrorists to Jerusalem and blowing up a supermarket, all charges he vehemently denies. He is still banned from visiting Jerusalem.

And despite his differences with Israeli authorities, he says he believes that the PLO should be pragmatic and recognize Israel’s right to exist, in return for which, he believes the Israelis should recognize Palestinian rights to a homeland.

It was largely his readiness to endorse such moderate positions toward Israel that divided Palestinians and led to the collapse of talks in London with British Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe.

According to Khouri’s account, he was shown a copy of a press statement by the Jordanian government several days before the planned meeting in London. Milhem, a former West Bank mayor, was out of the country and did not see the proposed statement until he arrived in London.

The statement said that the members of the joint delegation gave their personal support to a peaceful settlement of the Arab-Israeli dispute on the basis of all relevant U.N. resolutions, including 242 and 338, and supported the rights of all states in the area to a secure existence, “including Israel within its 1967 borders.”

At Khouri’s insistence, a phrase supporting the rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination was also inserted into the statement.

Despite the statement’s bland tone, Milhem refused to sign because of the mention of Israel’s 1967 borders.

“I was stunned,” Khouri recalled. “I know Milhem to be a moderate man. I couldn’t believe his interpretation.”

After Milhem balked, the British canceled the discussions with the joint delegation, which not only caused a crisis in Jordan’s relations with Britain but also deeply angered Hussein, then vacationing in Scotland.

When the PLO accused the British of making last-minute and unacceptable demands, Hussein went on television in London and defended the British, saying they acted honorably. Even Arafat now refers to the episode as “a tragedy.”

Khouri acknowledges that he made an “innocent mistake” by not seeking clearance from other PLO leaders before agreeing to the statement. But he says that the PLO also erred gravely by not coordinating policy on the eve of such a major diplomatic mission.

Khouri said he still has no regrets about any part of the statement and would endorse it again. While he maintained that the press statement did not go beyond the scope of the earlier Hussein-Arafat accord, the wording is far more explicit than in the earlier document.

“Look, either we should be pragmatic and accept the facts of life or give up the peace process,” Khouri said. “We have to recognize Israel and Israel has to recognize the Palestinians. Otherwise, there will never be peace.”