PLO Said to Endorse Israel’s Right to Exist : Governing Council Will Conditionally Support U.N. Resolution 242, Aide Says at Algiers Talks

The leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization, meeting to declare an independent Palestinian state, has decided to endorse conditionally a key U.N. resolution recognizing Israel’s right to exist, a senior PLO official said Sunday.

After two days of intensive, closed-door debate, the leaders of all but one of the PLO’s principal factions approved a formula under which the Palestine National Council, the PLO’s highest decision-making body, will accept U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which recognizes the existence and affirms the security of Israel.

The incorporation of Resolution 242 by name in a political statement to be adopted by the Palestine National Council this week would mark the first time that the PLO as a whole has officially endorsed this key U.N. resolution, which has served as the basis for all U.S. peacemaking efforts in the region since its passage by the Security Council in the wake of the 1967 Middle East War. There was no immediate official State Department comment on Sunday’s developments here.

For PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, who is eager to open a dialogue with the newly elected Bush Administration, the agreement reached Sunday represents a victory over hard-liners who had objected to any mention of 242 in the political platform that the Palestine National Council will adopt Tuesday, the day on which it will also proclaim “Palestine independence.”

However, it was apparent from the text of a tentative and tortuously worded compromise finally reached between moderate and radical PLO factions that their acceptance of 242 is not to be unconditional, but is instead to be linked to the convening of an international peace conference and to Palestinian demands for “self-determination,” or statehood.

This in turn disappointed some PLO moderates who fear that it will not go far enough in meeting the two longstanding U.S. conditions for opening a dialogue with the PLO--unconditional acceptance of Resolution 242 and a renunciation of violence.

“I am trying to be happy about this because in my head I know it is the best outcome we could achieve at the moment. But in my heart, I am disappointed,” said one PLO source.

According to an unofficial translation from the Arabic, the reference to Resolution 242 in the political platform that the PNC will be asked to approve reads as follows:

“The Palestine National Council believes that a comprehensive solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, with the core of it being the Palestinian problem, should be resolved within the framework of an international peace conference under the auspices of the United Nations and with the participation of all the parties, including the PLO . . . . (It) considers that the international conference will convene on the basis of the two resolutions 242 and 338 and that these resolutions will be implemented (along) with the necessity of guaranteeing the national and political rights of the Palestinian people, primarily their right to self-determination, according to U.N. resolutions concerning the Palestinian problem.”

(Resolution 338, a sister to 1967’s Resolution 242 but passed six years later, reaffirms the twin principles of Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories coupled with the right of all states in the area to peace within secure and recognized boundaries.)

Simpler Endorsement Wanted

PLO officials said that Arafat’s Fatah faction originally wanted a simpler endorsement of Resolution 242 but agreed to this wording to satisfy its major PLO ally, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) led by Nayef Hawatmeh.

Despite what was said to have been heavy pressure exerted on Arafat’s behalf by the Soviet Union, the other major faction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), refused to go along.

However, its leader, George Habash, said in the end that he would abide by the will of the majority. “We will not give Israel the gift of splitting the PLO over 242, but we will continue in a comradely way to oppose it,” he told reporters.

Matter of Degree

Describing the differences between the three major factions over what concessions the PLO should make, one senior source said Saturday that, while the United States “wants us to take five steps forward,” Arafat was willing “to take four steps forward, Hawatmeh three steps and Habash two.”

If one accepts that yardstick, then the progress made at this crucial four-day special session of the Palestine National Council can be measured as about 3 1/2 steps.

Some PLO moderates said they were disturbed by the reference in the political draft to other U.N. resolutions. Over the years, many of these have been virulently anti-Israel.

Statehood Not Addressed

However, endorsing Resolution 242 alone is a problem even for the most moderate Palestinians because of that resolution’s failure to address Palestinian demands for statehood or other political rights.

While the PLO’s qualified endorsement of Resolution 242 may not satisfy the United States, PLO officials argued that it was still a major achievement for an organization that, when it was founded 24 years ago, advocated the destruction of the Jewish state.

Not only does the agreement reached Sunday unify the PLO positions toward Resolution 242 for the first time but, by mentioning it specifically, the Palestinians will finally be coupling their quest for an independent state with recognition of the reality of Israel, they said.

“I think the United States will find that many of its conditions have been met, maybe not in terms of words but certainly in terms of content,” Jamil Hillal, a spokesman for the DFLP, said.

‘Much That Is New’

“There is much that is new and positive in our position. Now we just have to go out, to the United Nations, to Western Europe and to the United States and convince public opinion of this,” he added.

PLO officials said Arafat hopes to enlist more international support for the PLO position by addressing the opening session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York next month. Reagan Administration officials have indicated, however, that Arafat’s request for a visa to visit New York will be scrutinized carefully in the light of what happens at the Palestine National Council.

“We hope the State Department will give Chairman Arafat a visa,” PLO spokesman Ahmed Abdel Rahman said. “It is a trip for peace. We hope the Americans will open their minds and their eyes to that.”

No Official U.S. Reaction

In Washington, the developments in Algiers drew no official comment from the State Department, which has urged the Palestinians to accept unconditionally the terms of the two U.N. resolutions and to renounce the use of violence.

In meetings with Arab-Americans last week, State Department officials are said to have reacted cautiously to the PLO’s draft agenda, rejecting the PLO’s insistence on linking adoption of the two resolutions to a demand for Palestinian self-determination.

“What is more relevant than the pronouncements is the spirit of it,” said Khalil Jahshan, assistant director of the Palestine Research and Educational Center in Washington. “The Palestinian people are coming together, more united than ever before, to say they are willing to begin a peace process with their enemy. The United States should respond immediately with a willingness to establish a dialogue with the PLO.”

No Direct Dealings

The State Department has maintained that the United States will not deal directly with the PLO, although Secretary of State George P. Shultz has met with Palestine National Council members.

According to one Arab-American, the PLO’s latest gamble reflects the growing confidence that Palestinians have gained during the West Bank uprising, which has spurred much of the international community, as well as many Jews living outside Israel, to call for new solutions to the dispute between Israel and its neighbors.

“They’ve been dealing from a position of weakness for so many years,” said James Abourezk, founder and national chairman of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. “I suppose they feel this is an opportunity they just couldn’t pass up.”

Abourezk added that with the arrival of the Bush Administration, Palestinians may see yet another opening.

Welcomed by Jackson

Black civil rights leader Jesse Jackson welcomed reports that the PLO had agreed to recognize Israel implicitly and urged the United States and Israel to help the PLO make further moves toward peace.

“There ought to be an explicit recognition of Israel’s right to exist and support of Israel’s right to secure borders, but it is a step in the right direction,” said Jackson, who failed in his bid to win the Democratic presidential nomination. He commented during an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Members of the American Jewish community responded with greater skepticism.

“If only they had done this 41 years ago, or 21 years ago after the Six-Day War,” said Hyman Bookbinder, until recently the Washington spokesman for the American Jewish Committee. “This comes very late, after all the tensions, all these years of occupation. Whether it comes too late, I don’t know.”

Israeli Distractions

But Bookbinder said that Israel’s current preoccupation with domestic political considerations, including the definition of who is a Jew, may prevent Israel from focusing on the possibilities of the PLO’s plan.

“The history of the Arab-Israeli dispute has been a series of missed opportunities. I hope Israel is not too preoccupied to react to an initiative that could be another missed opportunity.”

Jackson urged the United States to “send an appeal to Israel to respond to it” with diplomacy rather than repression.

Times staff writer Melissa Healy, in Washington, contributed to this story.