Arafat Asks Bush for New U.S. Policy : Seeks Fresh, Impartial Mideast Stand; Palestinian Independence Talks Open

The PLO’s parliament in exile opened an urgent meeting here Saturday to work out a declaration of independence for a Palestinian state and heard PLO leader Yasser Arafat appeal to President-elect George Bush to formulate a fresh, more impartial U.S. Middle East policy.

“I ask President Bush to have a new policy, based on right and justice, not one that is aligned just to Israel,” the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization told the delegates, assembled here under tight security .

“Is it logical that 130 member states of the United Nations vote in support of our cause and Israel and the United States vote against?” Arafat asked.

The nominal parliament, formally known as the Palestine National Council, will also debate a still-disputed strategy over whether to recognize Israel’s right to exist--and if it does, when and in what manner.

Stone and Olive Branch

Arafat opened the special session with an emotional pledge to pursue the Palestinian struggle for an independent homeland with “a stone in one hand and an olive branch in the other.”

To loud applause, he praised “our generals with stones”--the young Palestinians whose 11-month uprising in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip has re-energized the Palestinians’ sense of nationalism and dramatically altered the nature of the Arab-Israeli dispute.

“With the stone and the olive branch, we will achieve a genuine peace in the Middle East,” Arafat declared. “We are going to win this struggle and we are going to go forward . . . until the flag of Palestine is raised over the Arab soil of Palestine and the churches and mosques of Jerusalem.”

400 Delegates Attending

The aim of this special four-day session of the legislature, attended by more than 400 delegates at a pine-fringed conference site just west of the Algerian capital, is to devise a political strategy that can translate the sympathy the uprising has generated for Palestinians into tangible diplomatic gains for the PLO and its goal of establishing an independent Palestinian state.

The delegates, gathered behind a security cordon provided by thousands of Algerian troops and scores of mobile anti-aircraft batteries, are expected to ratify three documents drafted by the PLO leadership over more than two months of intensive and extremely bitter debate:

-- A declaration of independence to lay the legal basis for a future Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

-- Approval, in principle, for the PLO leadership to form a provisional government for the new state, with the date to be decided at a later stage.

-- A political program outlining the PLO’s strategy and conditions for negotiations with Israel and the convening of an international peace conference.

With the exception of several Syrian-aligned splinter groups that are boycotting the meeting, all of the PLO’s major factions have agreed on the wording of a “declaration of independence” based on U.N. Resolution 181, the original 1947 partition plan for Palestine.

But, despite a marathon negotiating session that lasted through the night, the factions remain deeply divided over whether explicit recognition should be given to Israel in the position paper that is to be issued at the end of the conference, PLO officials said.

PLO moderates want the political documents to clearly endorse U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338, which affirm Israel’s right to exist behind the boundaries established before the 1967 Middle East War, when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

PLO hard-liners, however, have argued that the time is not right for such concessions because there are no assurances that either Israel or the United States will respond positively if the PLO plays what, in the words of one Arafat aide, is “our last and most important diplomatic card.”

“All of the factions, with the exception of those loyal to Syria, are in agreement about recognizing Israel,” the official said. “The disagreements are over the timing, over when to play this card.”

These disagreements were obliquely reflected in Arafat’s brief opening speech to the council, which seemed more noteworthy for what was left unsaid than what was said.

When the legislature last gathered in this same cavernous, smoky conference hall 18 months ago, Arafat was wildly cheered as he promised the delegates that the PLO’s aim was to establish a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

Four important events have altered the political landscape in the Middle East since the last council session, however.

Of these, the most important are the uprising itself and Jordan’s decision last July to sever its legal and administrative ties to the West Bank.

The uprising, known in Arabic as the intifada , has given birth to a new, activist grass-roots leadership in the occupied territories that has made no secret of its impatience with the PLO’s failure to advance the cause of Palestinian statehood. Jordan’s disengagement has compounded this pressure by opening a political vacuum that the PLO is now being challenged to fill.

In addition, the recent elections in Israel and the United States have shifted the responsibility for the next move in the peace process onto the PLO, forcing it to face what moderates say are both opportunities and obstacles.

As the conference convened, however, it was still far from clear whether the PLO would be ready to accept the two longstanding U.S. conditions for dialogue with the guerrilla organization--a renunciation of violence and unequivocal acceptance of U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338.

Other PLO sources said the movement is still split among three factions.

One, led by Arafat, wants the PLO to endorse Resolutions 242 and 338 in tandem with a statement affirming the right of the Palestinians to self-determination.

Another faction, led by Nayef Hawatmeh, leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, is willing to accept 242 and 338 but only if they are linked to “all other relevant U.N. and Arab summit resolutions” on the Palestinian question--a position that obscures the issue of Israel’s acceptance in a thicket of conditions and contradictory positions.

The third, so called hard-line faction--represented by George Habash’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine--wants no mention of Israel or Resolutions 242 and 338 in the political program at all.