Arafat’s Allies Seen Backing Peace Accord

Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat early today apparently cleared the first major hurdle toward delivering an interim peace settlement with Israel, overcoming bitter criticism from his own allies to win endorsement from the PLO’s most important faction.

After two difficult days of meetings at PLO headquarters here, Khalid Salam, Arafat’s press director, said that Arafat had gained important backing from the Fatah faction for a plan to gain interim self-rule for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Salam gave no further details.

Arafat has an even more challenging task ahead in the coming week. He must gain backing from the PLO Executive Committee and probably the 100-member Central Council, which includes factions that have stridently opposed the plan for an early Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and Jericho, together with more limited self-rule for Palestinians elsewhere in the West Bank. The plan falls far short of most Palestinians’ dreams for a homeland after 45 years of struggle.

At stake is the feisty former guerrilla leader’s ability to sell his constituency on a secretly negotiated plan that has been opposed by members of his own negotiating team. The plan offers most Palestinians in the territories only limited autonomy, postpones discussion of the status of Jerusalem and leaves huge numbers of Palestinian refugees around the world with little or no hope of ever going home.

Arafat is selling the plan as a foot in the door to Palestinian statehood and a basis from which to negotiate a lasting peace in the Middle East.

“This is not a peace agreement with Israel. This is a first step in the transfer of authority to a Palestinian self-government, and it is linked in stages whereby the Israelis should complete their withdrawal from the occupied territories and the Palestinians will have their national independence,” said Bassam abu Sharif, Arafat’s political adviser and spokesman.

“To certain people, this is not acceptable,” he said in an interview. “Those who are for the peace process and criticize this agreement have a point of view that the step-by-step approach is not the right way. But the overwhelming majority support President Arafat and realize the step-by-step plan is the best way to reach a peace agreement with Israel, based on a two-state solution.”

The PLO leader is trying to avoid the potentially deadly political confrontation that would be involved in convening the full Palestine National Council, the PLO’s parliament-in-exile.

Yet a key obstacle to an agreement for mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO, considered here as a highly desirable preliminary to signing the peace plan, is Israel’s demand for amendments to the Palestinian charter, which calls for the destruction of the Jewish state, as a condition for Israeli recognition of the PLO.

PLO officials hope they can convince Israel that the organization more than met these requirements when it effectively recognized Israel, renounced terrorism and declared any earlier charter provisions to the contrary “obsolete” in a series of actions in 1988 and 1989.

“I don’t see any reason why the Israelis should make this formality an obstacle. They know very well they’ve been dealing with the PLO all along,” Abu Sharif said.

Privately, some PLO officials were irritated that Israel was holding out for important new gestures from Arafat when they believe Arafat should be concentrating his energies on delivering agreement on the peace plan. “They want to say, ‘We’ve squeezed the PLO and now it’s a good boy. It has met all our conditions,’ ” said one official. “And of course on our side, we don’t want to be squeezed.”

Mohammed Subieh, secretary general of the Palestine National Council, complained that “those who raise the question of the charter are not serious and do not want to make serious steps for peace.” He said that if the PLO is required to change its charter, Israel’s Likud Party should be asked to amend its map of the Land of Israel, which shows no Palestinian territory.

But PLO Executive Committee member Yasser Abed-Rabho predicted that Israel’s demands could somehow be accommodated. “We can deal with these formulas on the basis of our Palestine National Council’s decisions and peace strategy,” he said.

The 18-member Central Committee of Fatah, the PLO’s largest and wealthiest faction and Arafat’s political base within the organization, met behind closed doors into the early hours this morning before apparently deciding to back him.

Arafat spoke twice on the telephone during the Friday night session with Jordan’s King Hussein, who expressed Jordan’s “full support for the independent Palestinian decision,” according to sources familiar with the deliberations.

Backing from other front-line Arab states is considered crucial to any long-term negotiating strategy for the Palestinians. Support from Jordan, whose future is inextricably linked with that of any Palestinian entity on the other bank of the Jordan River, is the most vital.

Palestinian sources familiar with the Fatah deliberations said that while the majority apparently backed the “Gaza-Jericho first” option, there was widespread disgruntlement over the secrecy of the back-channel talks in Oslo that produced the agreement that came to light last weekend.

Coming at a time when Arafat has been under increasing criticism for his dictatorial leadership style, the fact that the PLO leader cut a deal without the knowledge of his negotiating team in Washington, or even most members of the PLO Executive Committee, has not gone over smoothly.

There was less dissent within Fatah over the merits of the agreement itself. At least some committee members, however, complained that it contains no provisions for Palestinian sovereignty, that it leaves ultimate responsibility for security in the occupied territories in Israeli hands and takes a weak position on negotiating for the future status of Jerusalem.

Should the full PLO Central Council, a cross-section of the PNC, be convened next week, Arafat will also have to brook opposition from Palestinians who believe the Gaza-Jericho interim solution is effectively a sellout.

“We warn against slipping to sign a declaration of principles which would not guarantee basic and national principles,” the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front, one of the PLO’s member factions, said in a statement.

* SETTLER OPPOSITION: Jewish settlers on West Bank vow to keep hold on land. A10