Israel and PLO Are Already Talking : Despite the Link of U.S. Mediation, Pace Will Remain Slow

The main conclusion emerging from Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s visit to Washington is that indirect negotiations have in effect been initiated between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel with the mediation of the United States.

One has to be totally blind not to recognize this fact. The proposals the United States has received from Israel will now be transmitted to the PLO in Tunisia. The American representatives will try to sell the ideas of the Israeli prime minister to the PLO leadership. They will then come back from Tunisia with counterproposals on how to start the first stage of the peace process and so on, back and forth.

Shamir may insist that Israel will never negotiate with the PLO under any circumstances, but both he and the rest of the Israeli Cabinet understand that from now on, the Americans will shuttle between them and the PLO with proposals and counterproposals.

Elections in the occupied territories will only strengthen this trend. If Shamir’s proposal is accepted, there can only be one outcome: The PLO representatives will win. This already happened in the 1976 municipal elections in the West Bank; PLO representatives were elected then. If elections are held in the territories, Shamir will have no choice but to accept those elected after he himself has proposed to start the process. Shamir will call them representatives of the Palestinian population, but in reality they will be PLO representatives, more authentic perhaps than the PLO leadership outside the territories but nonetheless taking their directives from PLO headquarters in Tunisia.

There are conflicts of interest between the Palestinian residents of the territories and the PLO representatives abroad, which may deepen in the future, but it is a mistake to think that one can drive a wedge between the two groups. Both have the same objective--get rid of the Israeli occupation and gain independence. Neither group wants to be weakened by being separated from the other.

In other words, the Israeli leadership is outwardly clinging to a fiction, maintaining that the PLO does not exist and that the Palestinian residents of the territories do not want to be represented by it. For the moment, the Bush Administration is willing to let the Israeli government live with this fiction, provided the process is initiated.

Likud, whose representatives are now conducting Israel’s foreign policy, will find that just as in the case of the “Jordanian option,” anyone who wishes to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will not be able to do so without the PLO. Hence, rather than look for substitutes, efforts should be made to change the PLO, see to it that the moderates in its ranks in the territories and Tunis control the organization and accept Israel’s minimal military conditions.

Is Shamir prepared to cooperate in this process? His talks in Washington indicate that, at least in the initial stage, he is willing to coordinate the first moves with the United States. The fact that the United States is engaged in a dialogue with the PLO has not deterred him. He has not brought along a plan, but rather a few ideas, the central one being the holding of democratic elections in the territories. In the past, including in the Camp David accords, it was agreed that such elections would only take place after the transition period.

At this point Shamir is prepared to hold elections beforehand, at an earlier stage, provided violence in the territories is stopped. He is even willing to find a way that will enable the Palestinian residents of Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem to take part. Shamir accepts the idea, embodied in the Camp David accords, that the process will not stop at the interim stage and that negotiations on the final status of the territories are to be expected. He would not, however, go beyond that line.

His talks in Washington show once again that, when it comes to the West Bank, he is not willing to adopt the formula of territory for peace. Shamir’s interpretation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 is altogether different from the interpretation of the framers of the resolution, who at the time consulted Israel’s representatives as well, and of course from the interpretation of Washington.

This, in effect, eliminates any possibility of negotiations between Israel and Jordan. Even if King Hussein were willing to represent the Palestinians in negotiations with Israel, and the Palestinians themselves agreed to it, there would be no basis for initiating negotiations under such conditions.

Are the ideas that Shamir brought to Washington sufficient to move along the peace process? They are sufficient to start the process and get over the first hurdle. This is why Washington could not reject Shamir’s ideas outright and stop the process before it even began. Shamir’s proposal will have no meaning or value if in the meantime the government of Israel keeps its promise and establishes new settlements in the territories. In order for the wagon to start rolling, the American diplomats will have to wrap the proposal in the proper packaging and persuade the PLO to allow the Palestinians in the territories to go to the polls. It is clear that the PLO will not accept the proposal before it knows what its place in these elections will be.

Anyone who expected to see a quick resolution of the blood-drenched conflict is bound to be disappointed with the results of the Washington visits of Shamir and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and the expected visit of King Hussein. Washington itself is planning its moves by taking tiny steps across the entire front, rather than looking for spectacular breakthroughs. For the moment, the Palestinians will have to make do with this slow pace. As for Shamir, and the viewpoint he represents, this means gaining time. But Israel is left with the difficult dilemma of a person who holds a glowing coal in his hand and cannot throw it away.