For Arafat, Pact Is Big Step Forward

It was no doubt with a sense of relief that Yasser Arafat, the aging, ailing leader of the Palestinians, stepped to the lectern of the White House East Room as last week drew to a close.

After 19 months of stagnation in the peace process, the interim accord he was about to sign with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meant that Arafat could point at last to tangible new benefits for the Palestinians as a result of his controversial partnership with Israel.

Indeed, the agreement negotiated by President Clinton at a Maryland conference center means that, for the first time since January 1997, the Palestinians will assume control over another chunk of West Bank land, much of it contiguous, in exchange for a concrete plan to curb anti-Israeli violence. They also gained an enhanced diplomatic and working relationship with the United States. And they took a major step toward statehood.

All are of unparalleled importance for a leader who has faced growing public frustration with a peace process that many Palestinians say has brought them no closer to their dream of independence.

But everything depends on whether the agreement is implemented.

“Any piece of land that Arafat gets in this deal will increase his stature among the Palestinian people,” said political science professor Ali Jirbawi of the West Bank’s Birzeit University. “He needs to be able to show that progress is being made on the ground. This agreement, if it’s carried out, will help him do that.”

Within hours of signing the accord, the Palestinian leader underlined his ultimate goals in the peace process, reiterating his plan to declare statehood “very soon.” But in the new spirit of partnership emanating from the Wye Plantation, he said he hoped that an independent Palestine will occur with Israel’s assent.

Alongside the promise of more land for the Palestinians in the new accord, Israel obtained a Palestinian commitment to greater protection for its citizens against attacks by Islamic militants. By agreeing to Israel’s long-term demand that he mount a systematic campaign against terrorism, Arafat now appears willing to act forcefully against violent members of his main political opposition, the militant Islamic movement Hamas.

In the past, under pressure from the United States and Israel, Arafat arrested Hamas leaders or activists suspected of involvement in attacks. But he had not carried out the kind of intensive struggle against terror--including collecting weapons, halting anti-Israeli incitement and breaking the extremist group’s infrastructure--that Israel has demanded.

That appears likely to change if Arafat follows through on the detailed commitments he has apparently entered into under the new agreement, although not all its specifics have been made public. The CIA will help verify Palestinian compliance with obligations to arrest suspects, reduce the size of its police force and share intelligence.

Almost immediately after the accord was reached, Palestinian police stepped up pressure on Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the influential leader of Hamas, by arresting 11 journalists and seizing their film and tapes after a news conference at which he denounced the new accord as “worthless.”

Then, on Sunday, a young man was shot and killed by Palestinian security services during protests over a police raid on the West Bank headquarters of the Fatah movement, Arafat’s own political faction. Palestinians said the agents were searching for illegal weapons, an indication that the new crackdown will not be limited to opposition groups.

Widespread disillusionment over the lack of progress toward peace has heightened support among the Palestinians for hard-liners--and especially for groups such as Hamas, whose secretive military wing is believed to have killed scores of Israelis in suicide bombings. In a poll released just before the Wye talks, a majority of Palestinians said--for the first time since the peace process began in 1993--that they supported the use of terrorism as a political weapon.

If Arafat proceeds with a crackdown, he and his top aides could themselves be at risk, political analysts now say. “Hamas is already very angry at Arafat” for previous arrests, one said. “They could easily turn on him.”

Nabil Amr, an advisor to Arafat, said Friday that the Palestinian leadership hopes that “the opposition will understand the situation and that the Palestinian people will deal with developments in a rational way.”

Under terms of the agreement, Israel will withdraw troops from 13% of the West Bank in three phases over 12 weeks, in exchange for reciprocal Palestinian actions. For the moment, Israel will retain authority over security matters in most of the ceded territory, but the Palestinians will run their own civil affairs. The addition will boost areas under at least partial Palestinian control to 40% of the West Bank.

Equally important for Palestinians, Israel agreed to transfer an additional 15% of the territory from partial to full Palestinian control, under which the Palestinian Authority is responsible for both security and civil matters. Under previous agreements, the Palestinians already control the West Bank’s major cities; the new understandings will bring scores of surrounding villages under their authority as well.

But the agreement contains other achievements--and potential risks--for the Palestinian leader. He gained renewed commitments from Israel to allow the Palestinians to open an airport in the Gaza Strip, as well as an industrial zone on the Israeli-Gaza border and two “safe passage” routes between Palestinian-ruled areas in the West Bank and Gaza--all important elements of sovereignty.

Israel also agreed to release 750 of the up to 3,000 Palestinian “political prisoners” it holds, although the number was far fewer than Arafat had sought.

In a concession to Israel, the Palestinians assented to the formal revocation of dozens of anti-Israel clauses in their national charter, a process begun in 1996 but never completed, according to the Israeli government. But Arafat managed to win a promise from Clinton to attend the gathering of the Palestinian leadership at which the changes are to be made, which will allow him to claim a new degree of U.S. recognition of his fledgling government.

Several analysts and commentators said the CIA’s involvement in verifying Palestinian compliance with security commitments, which grew out of Israeli distrust, will be a plus for the Palestinians.

And Israelis noted with chagrin that the widely reported friction that developed at Wye between Clinton administration officials and Israeli delegates helped to cement the new ties between the U.S. and the Palestinian leadership.