NEWS ANALYSIS : With Peace Bid, Arafat Again Bounces Back

A Palestinian businessman drew a series of diminishing circles on a place mat in a restaurant here, a big sphere on the left labeled 1967, a tiny dot on the right marked 1982.

It was a newspaper cartoon representing the fortunes of Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat, from the time he emerged as a major figure on the world stage with the Arab-Israeli war in 1967 to the time he shuffled ingloriously out of Beirut with his forces 15 years later, after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

“At the time, I believed it was more or less true,” the businessman confessed. But he said he has now gone back to the newspaper’s editor with a new series of circles. This time the small dot is marked 1967. The big dot is marked “now.”

“I have told him: ‘You must run the cartoon again, only now you must run it this way. You are dealing with history,’ ” he said. “Arafat is back.”

Only a few weeks ago, the mercurial Palestinian leader had reached one of his lowest ebbs. Peace talks in Washington were going nowhere, and the Palestinian delegation had threatened to resign. Islamic fundamentalist opponents were on the rise. Within his own organization dissent had reached an unprecedented pitch. The PLO was going broke. Salaries weren’t being paid. Embassies flying the flag of Palestine around the world were closing their doors.

This week, an unprecedented agreement in which Israel and the PLO will recognize each other seems only days away. A peace pact allowing Arafat to return in triumph to Palestinian lands could be signed by next week. A resumed dialogue with the United States seems not far off.

Perhaps only this grizzled, checker-scarfed president of a nonexistent country could keep the world flying along on such a roller-coaster ride through history. Arafat, by the skin of his teeth and to the frank exasperation of those Arab leaders forced to careen along with him, appears likely to pull it off again.

As he continued his high-profile shuttle around Arab capitals Monday to sell his unexpected peace deal with Israel for Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and Jericho, Arafat was facing one of the toughest sales jobs in a career of infamy and tight squeezes.

His own lieutenants admit they are finding some reluctance to support the plan from Arab capitals that count the most. These include Damascus, Syria, which said it would leave the matter for the Palestinians to decide, and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which despite endorsement for the plan still hasn’t committed to help pay for it.

Radical Palestinian leaders in Damascus refused even to meet with Arafat. And the 3.5-million-strong Palestinian diaspora--the heart of Arafat’s constituency--is already complaining that the plan does nothing for the majority of Palestinians around the world.

Yet at PLO headquarters in Tunis on Monday, senior PLO officials said they have measured the substance of the Arab leaders’ lukewarm response and counted the votes at an upcoming PLO Executive Committee meeting. The result: Arafat wins. Again.

“What Arafat is telling people is that he has reservations about this too,” a senior aide said Monday. “But he still OKs it and accepts it because negotiation means the art of the possible, not the art of the impossible.”

At PLO headquarters, Arafat aides have already penciled in the likely outcome of the decisive meeting of the 18-member PLO Executive Committee scheduled for Wednesday or Thursday.

The way they see it, two Damascus-based radicals who oppose the plan are indeed likely to vote no. So what? Arafat aides figure. They opposed the peace process to begin with. Nobody expected them to say yes when it began to bear fruit.

The four representatives from Arafat’s moderate Fatah faction will vote yes. True, Fatah at its meeting last week was divided on the question. But the majority said yes, and all four Executive Committee members--Arafat, Abu Alaa (who conducted the secret talks in Oslo), Abu Maazen (who oversaw the talks) and PLO Foreign Minister Farouk Kaddoumi (who doesn’t necessarily like the agreement but won’t oppose Arafat)--will vote yes.

One of Arafat’s most vocal critics, Lebanon representative Shafik Hout, has suspended his membership and probably won’t vote. Yasser Abed-Rabho, who broke with the Damascus radicals because he favored launching the Madrid peace talks, will vote yes. One or more of the independents, including the Iraqi-backed Arab Liberation Front, may vote no, but most who don’t like it will abstain.

The unofficial count in Tunis as of Monday: nine or 10 for, up to three against, the rest abstentions.

That leaves Arafat to conclude the deal for mutual recognition with Israel perhaps as early as the weekend, unless the Executive Committee decides to go the extra step of convening the 108-member PLO Central Council. And the Gaza-Jericho statement of principles could be signed in Washington by the beginning of next week.

Likewise, Arafat’s game plan in his shuttle around Arab capitals the past two days has been more geared toward heading off opposition than winning enthusiastic support.

Syrian President Hafez Assad’s lukewarm reception, indicating that he would leave it up to the Palestinian people to decide on the peace plan, was substantially less than Arafat might have hoped for.

But Palestinian leaders here did not appear to be concerned. “We can deal with our internal domestic political problems democratically, by ourselves. We don’t want a mandate (from Syria) on our own democracy,” one senior Arafat aide said.

The self-assuredness in Tunis is in marked contrast to the mood just after the beginning of the latest round of Arab-Israeli peace talks when, at Arafat’s urging, foreign ministers from the front-line states--Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the Gulf nations--met in Damascus. Arafat was terrified that Syria would sign an early peace agreement with Israel on the relatively uncomplicated Golan Heights matter and leave the Palestinians hanging.

He feared the Jordanians might do the same thing, except that they were linked to the Palestinians on the same negotiating delegation. He demanded a full Arab summit, and no one listened.

Now it’s Jordan, Lebanon and Syria who are wondering why Arafat didn’t wait for a comprehensive Arab settlement. Now it’s Jordan demanding an Arab summit, and no one is answering.

And Arafat’s reply is that history came calling.