Israel Jails Palestinian Moderate, Is Criticized : Leaders Accused of Seeing Greater Threat in Those Willing to Negotiate Than in Militants

Jerusalem police arrested a prominent Palestinian activist in a pre-dawn raid here Sunday, less than four days after the Arab leader had broken a longstanding nationalist taboo by speaking out at an Israeli-sponsored public forum in favor of a historical compromise between the two peoples.

Israeli authorities said Faisal Husseini, 47, was placed under six months’ administrative detention on the direct order of Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin because of his allegedly “subversive, hostile activities” on behalf of Yasser Arafat’s mainstream Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Husseini, who was released from a similar sentence last June 9, can be held without formal charges and without trial under emergency rules carried over from the period of British rule here. The detention order is renewable.

Palestinian and Israeli critics charged that Husseini, who is a member of one of the area’s oldest and most prominent Arab families, is the victim of a government policy that sees moderate Palestinians, ready to negotiate peace, as a greater threat than militants who are not.

Charge by Peace Now

Itzhik Galnoor, a spokesman for the leftist Peace Now movement, said in an interview outside the police station where Husseini was being held Sunday that his surprise arrest flies in the face of government claims that it is ready to negotiate with moderate Palestinians. In fact, Galnoor charged, it was as a direct result of his having expressed moderate views at a Peace Now forum last Wednesday night that Husseini was arrested.

Husseini told 400 peace activists last week that he favors the so-called “two-state solution” to the Middle East conflict, in which Palestinians would recognize Israel’s right to exist within its pre-1967 borders in return for acceptance of an independent Palestinian state on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Israelis have long feared that the Arabs see a West Bank state as only the first step toward a claim for all of the historic land of Palestine. In fact, Husseini was criticized by some Palestinian militants after his Peace Now appearance for effectively renouncing designs on pre-1967 Israel.

Another Arrest Reported

However, Galnoor charged that to an Israeli government that is not ready to negotiate, “the fact (Husseini) came out and said what he said was a threat.” A Gaza Palestinian who spoke at an earlier Peace Now rally was also arrested the next day, said Galnoor, who participated Sunday in a demonstration calling on the government to either free Husseini or put him on public trial.

The authorities assert that even though they frequently have convincing evidence of anti-state activity, they often prefer administrative sanctions over holding an open trial as a way of protecting informants.

The leftist Citizens Rights Movement called Husseini’s arrest “an act of political stupidity,” and Israel Radio said that Peace Now has sent messages to the heads of Western governments calling on them to intervene with the Israeli authorities in the case.

Hanna Siniora, editor of the pro-PLO, Arabic-language newspaper Al Fajr, said that Husseini’s arrest “shows that this government has no policy toward peace. Their intention is to try and break the will of the Palestinian people.”

According to a statement distributed by the national police, Husseini “is known as a senior figure among Fatah activists in Jerusalem and the region.” He has spent 12 of the last 15 months under administrative detention, allegedly for pro-Fatah activities.

The PLO is considered an outlaw, terrorist organization here, and membership in it or even contact with its members is forbidden.

Open Support of PLO

Like a vast majority of Palestinians in Jerusalem and the occupied territories, Husseini openly supports the PLO’s political goals. However, he has steered clear in public, at least, of any organizational ties to the group.

The police statement said that immediately after his June 9 release from prison, Husseini “renewed his subversive, hostile activities” in support of the nearly eight-month-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

The authorities also closed the Institute for Arab Studies in East Jerusalem, which Husseini directed and which the police charged was a front organization “controlled and financed by . . . Fatah.” The police added that “various leaflets were found during a search . . . of the institute and of Husseini’s home.”

Permanent Feature

Underground leaflets calling for strikes, civil disobedience and anti-Israeli demonstrations have become a permanent feature of the uprising, and copies are widely disseminated.

Palestinian sources noted that Husseini was in an Israeli jail when the uprising broke out and remained there during its first six months.

The Husseini family claims descent from the Prophet Mohammed, and Faisal Husseini’s father was an Arab hero, killed in action fighting against the Israelis in the 1948 war that secured Israel’s independence.