Arafat’s Proving Time Is Here

That rarest of political events in the Arab world, a free and internationally validated election, has produced a personal triumph for Yasser Arafat and a historic move toward self-government by the Palestinian people.

Against only nominal opposition Arafat was chosen president of the 88-member council that will be the de facto legislature for the Gaza Strip and those areas of the West Bank from which Israel has withdrawn. The council will be dominated by Arafat loyalists, elected from among hundreds of candidates. The bigger news is the size of the vote--a turnout of about 75%--cast by a populace wholly inexperienced with electoral democracy, and its implicit repudiation of Hamas and other antipeace radical groups.

With his decades-old claim to power now legitimized by democratic means, Arafat must show that he can govern with respect for democratic values. He is no longer the head of a faction-riven movement committed to Israel’s destruction and to its replacement by a Palestinian state running from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River or, in the dreams of some Palestinians, even beyond. He is now the recognized leader of what most see as an emerging state.

Arafat has long promised that any state he headed would be democratic and secular. The proving time has arrived. Arafat and his agents must demonstrate that the heavy-handed approach they have shown in recent months--abuses of civil rights, intimidation of the press, intolerance of criticism--will not be their model under expanded self-rule.

Arafat’s immediate challenge is to get the more radical Palestinian leadership outside the autonomous territories to agree to changes in the 1968 Palestine National Covenant. Among its anti-Israel clauses, the document declares Palestine’s partition by the United Nations in 1947 and Israel’s creation to be “null and void” and calls for expelling all Jews who were not living in Palestine at the time of “the Zionist invasion.”

Arafat has agreed to eliminate such clauses within two months. That requires getting a two-thirds vote from the Palestine National Council. Israel has said that if he fails it will halt the peace process.

More than ever, then, the future of the Palestinians is in Arafat’s hands. The people have endorsed a full peace with Israel. Arafat must show that he has the political clout within the Palestinian leadership to bring that goal within reach.