Palestinian Discord Boils Over : Three key negotiating team members threaten to quit in dispute with PLO

Internal differences among Palestinians involved in peace talks with Israel have exploded into the open, with three key members of the negotiating team threatening to resign in a dispute with Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat.

At issue is a revolt by representatives of the Palestinians who have been living under Israeli rule against the demand by the PLO leadership in Tunis to call all the negotiating shots. Ironically, it’s now the PLO that seems to be taking a more moderate line toward Israel, contradicting long-held assumptions that it would be Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip who would be the more accommodating.

As always, it’s hard to tell how much of this dispute turns on personalities and how much on real policy differences. The fuse for the latest explosion was lit when the PLO gave the United States, sponsor of the peace talks, a statement offering certain negotiating concessions, including deferring the contentious issue of any future Palestinian administrative role in Jerusalem. Palestinians on the negotiating team objected and proffered their own harder-line statement. That’s when three key members of the team made their dramatic threat to resign.

The dispute offers clear insight into why the Palestinians have found it so hard to make negotiating decisions at the deadlocked peace talks. Interestingly, Israel’s Foreign Minister Shimon Peres has expressed understanding about what the Palestinians are going through, noting that in Israel as well the looming need to make hard choices has sharpened divisions.

But pressure on the Palestinians is clearly rising. For one thing, Syria and Israel seem to be getting serious about making peace, an achievement that threatens to undercut the Palestinians’ negotiating hand. For another, the influence of anti-peace radical movements in the West Bank and Gaza seems to be growing. The Palestinian negotiators as well as the PLO have a life-or-death stake in not letting the radicals make further gains. In the end that pragmatic imperative may be the major factor in getting them to submerge their tactical differences.