Arabs Outraged by Ruling on Arafat : Egypt, Jordan to Seek Debate Shift to Geneva

Expressions of outrage and regret were heard throughout the Arab world Sunday in response to the decision by the United States to bar Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat from attending a session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

Egypt and Jordan, two of the staunchest U.S. allies in the region, voiced disappointment at Washington’s decision and said they will work toward moving the assembly’s debate on Palestinian issues, scheduled to begin Thursday, from New York to the world body’s European headquarters in Geneva.

Chedli Klibi, secretary general of the Arab League, said in Damascus that the U.S. position appears “fully mortgaged to the most radical Israeli positions as to finding a settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

‘Regret and Astonishment’

In Kuwait, a close ally of Washington in the Persian Gulf, the government said in a statement that it “expresses its regret and astonishment at the American position and the negative effects it will have on the peace process.”

Arab foreign ministers, led by Iraq’s Tarik Aziz, announced that they were canceling their plans to attend the General Assembly session.

In Jerusalem, meanwhile, the Israeli government applauded the U.S. action. Cabinet Secretary Elyskim Rubenstein said: “This was the right and welcome decision from all accounts, morally, legally, politically. The record of the PLO on terrorism is crystal clear.”

Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip echoed Arab outrage.

“It’s a major insult, a slap in the face for the Palestinian people,” said Mahdi Abdul Hadi, head of an association of Palestinian accountants and professors. Palestinian sources called the U.S. action a blow to moderates and an aid to both Palestinian and Israeli extremists.

Seen as Shultz’s Decision

Reports from Washington suggested that the decision to deny Arafat, chairman of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, a visa to enter the United States was taken personally by Secretary of State George P. Shultz against the recommendation of the State Department’s Middle East experts. Among others, a group of 51 U.S. senators had opposed the granting of a visa to the PLO chief.

Shultz said in a statement that the visa was denied because of what he termed “convincing evidence” that the PLO has engaged in terrorism against Americans.

He said Arafat “knows of, condones and lends support to such acts” and could be regarded as “an accessory to such terrorism.”

Arafat, who held talks with Jordan’s King Hussein in Amman on Sunday, addressed the United Nations in 1974. In his remarks then, Arafat said that he came before the world organization with both “a gun and an olive branch,” a suggestion that he would fight if Israel did not respond to his overtures for peace.

Irony Cited by Arabs

Many Arab commentators found Shultz’s remarks ironic in light of the decisions taken by the Palestine National Council two weeks ago in Algiers.

These included acceptance, as the basis of negotiating Middle East peace, of two U.N. resolutions affirming the right of nations of the region--implicitly including Israel--to exist within secure borders. The Palestinian parliament in exile, as the council is sometimes called, had not previously accepted the resolutions in any context.

The council also proclaimed the independence of a still-unborn Palestinian state, presumably in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which have been under Israeli occupation since 1967. It also renounced “terrorism” but not what it calls its right to attack military targets in Israel.

“It is really unfortunate that this American decision comes only a short period of time after the historic resolutions adopted recently by the Palestine National Council in Algiers,” said Foreign Minister Taher Masri of Jordan.

Should Have Been Welcomed

“We thought this moderation, which was an American request, should have had an American welcome,” Masri was quoted as having told Petra, the official Jordanian press agency.

The news agency said that in a telephone conversation between King Hussein and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the two leaders agreed to work for the transfer of the Palestinian debate from New York to Geneva. Such a move could take months of preparations, however.

Foreign Minister Esmat Abdel Meguid of Egypt said Washington’s action “does not agree with the U.S. assurances” to work for peace in the region.

Nonetheless, Abdel-Meguid said, the major powers should continue working for a comprehensive settlement in the region.

“The United States is throwing away a historical chance to mediate in the Middle East by ignoring the declaration of the Palestinian independent state,” said the Gulf News in Dubai. “If the United States continues to ignore the significance of what happened in Algiers, it stands completely isolated, even among its allies.”

Palestinians Angry

Palestinian reaction to the American decision was predictably angry, with Salah Khalaf, Arafat’s deputy in the PLO, saying in Kuwait that the organization may now have to rethink its moderate policy.

Ahmed Abdul-Rahman, a member of the PLO Central Council, which links the Palestine National Council to the PLO Executive Committee, was quoted as saying that Palestinians reacted with “total disillusionment, anger, indignation.” He said people he encountered Sunday were “really astounded, and they are very much angry.”

Bassam abu Sharif, Arafat’s spokesman and regarded as one of the key advocates of moderation among the PLO leader’s supporters, suggested angrily that Arafat is as much a terrorist “as George Washington.”

“In offering our hand, we were gambling that it would not be lopped off,” Abu Sharif wrote in the London-based Mideast Mirror. “In extending the olive branch, we were hoping that it would not be used to flog us.”

‘A Bad Gamble’

“The responses of Israel and the U.S. Administration so far suggest that it was a bad gamble and a naive hope,” Abu Sharif said. “They suggest that PLO moderation makes the Israeli and American administrations uncomfortable. They suggest that the people in charge in Tel Aviv and Washington want to provoke the PLO into dropping all peace options, using this as a cover for the continued enslavement and persecution of the Palestinian people.

“My hope now is that Washington 1989 will differ from Washington 1988 and give peace a visa,” Abu Sharif wrote.