Challenge no.57
by Assaf Adiv
AFTER twenty years of staunch opposition – first to the Camp David agreement, then to the Oslo accords – leaders from the Popular and Democratic Fronts for the Liberation of Palestine paid visits to Cairo in August and met, each separately, with the Chairperson of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Yasser Arafat. These trysts symbolize a turnabout in the policy of the leftist fronts, which still have many members in the Territories, as well as in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. Politically weak, and without fresh ideas, their leaders have now accepted the new American order. Arafat, for his part, insisted on keeping the meetings separate. He seeks to divide the opposition and weaken it even further, thus preparing the ground for the surrender he will have to make in the final-status negotiations.
The Popular Front (PFLP) went to Cairo on August 1, headed by its deputy chief, Abu Ali Mustafa. Three weeks later, on August 22, it was the turn of the Democratic Front (DFLP). Its chief, Na'if Hawatmeh, himself came and met with Arafat.
Ever since the inception of the Palestinian national movement, the PFLP, which styles itself Marxist, was a symbol of opposition to the political tendency represented by Arafat. It called for a relentless struggle to revolutionize the social order in the Arab countries. Its anti-Oslo stance was not merely tactical, but signified a refusal to cooperate in any way with imperialism or Zionism. The DFLP, which differs from the PFLP as Rosenkrantz from Guildenstern, likewise used to condemn regimes that kowtowed to Washington.
Despite their historic positions, neither Front conditioned the meeting with Arafat on a commitment by him to change his ways. Even the decision to meet in Cairo, under the aegis of Hosni Mubarak (himself under America's aegis) signifies the acceptance of Egypt as a central factor in the Arab world. The meetings do not portend any shift to the left by Arafat and Mubarak, rather a contrary shift by Hawatmeh and the PFLP's George Habash.
After the first of these encounters, the PFLP deputy Mustafa announced that the most important thing, from the viewpoint of his movement, was to re-activate the PLO. He stressed that the PFLP has no intention of taking part in the final-status negotiations with Israel. Yet he also acknowledged that the Oslo accords amount to an irreversible fait accompli.
This change in the position of the PFLP, said Mustafa, reflects its realism. He denied that the shift in Syria's position toward Israel had anything to do with it. The dialogue with Arafat, he said, was in the Palestinian national interest. "Developments of the last few months require that we set aside our differences and seek the common denominator that will unite the forces of the Palestinian people." (al-Quds, August 2.)
Such an explanation is hardly satisfying. For twenty years the PFLP steered clear of pro-American Egypt. When one of its leaders, Bassam Abu Sharif, took part in a PLO mission to Cairo in 1984, he was expelled from the Front. The PFLP was a pillar of the "Alliance of Palestinian Forces", based in Damascus, that rose up in rejection of Oslo.
The meetings of the Palestinian left with Arafat should be viewed in
the light of two developments, both resulting from Ehud Barak's accession
to power in Israel.
Barak's victory has occasioned a turnabout in Syria's positions.
Unprecedented proclamations of warmth have been emanating from Damascus.
(See Challenge # 56.) Diplomats, journalists, and even, lately, an athlete
have borne heartening messages to Jerusalem. The most important and concrete
step, however, occurred in a meeting on June 13 between the Syrian Vice
President, Abed al-Halim Khaddam, and the leaders of the Palestinian Salvation
Front.1 The details of what transpired remained under wraps until Palestinian
sources reported them to journalist Ibrahim Hamidi, who transmitted them
in the London paper al-Wassat on July 26. According to Hamidi, Khaddam
told the participants that Syria expects them to stop the armed struggle
against Israel. "The participants ... understood that they are to concentrate,
from now on, on political, party-centered action in the Palestinian street."
This meeting sent a clear message to Washington: Syria intends to cease and desist from what the White House calls "support for terrorism". By applying this label to a nation, the US turns it into a pariah. No global financial institutions will deal with it. Foreign investors avoid it. As one of seven states that carry the stigma, Syria wants very much to be free of it.
The Khaddam meeting did, in fact, make an impression in Washington.
During Barak's visit in late July, he and US President Bill Clinton took
great interest in it.
As the negotiating committees of Israel and the PA get ready for
the final round, the PFLP and the DFLP do not want to be left out of the
picture. Whereas they rejected the Oslo accords with good reason, they
have not managed to develop an alternative strategy for the national struggle.
An outstanding example was their mistaken decision to boycott the elections
for the Palestinian Legislative Council in 1996. This misguided attempt
isolated them from the masses. The collapse of the Soviet Union, followed
by a vacuum in the international arena, has no doubt played a decisive
part as well. Nor were the Fronts willing to endure the treatment that
Arafat habitually doles out to the Islamic movement, Hamas: within the
Territories, opposition to Arafat and Oslo brings on arrests without trial,
the closing of offices, and the silencing of the press.
The political freeze of the last three years gave the leftist Fronts
much-needed time. They squandered it. Instead of building a foundation
for opposing Oslo, they advocated closing ranks with Arafat against Netanyahu.
They indulged in the delusion that Arafat would take their advice and declare
a state unilaterally. Barak's rise to power, and the new surge of energy
this has given to both the Palestinian and Syrian tracks, have had the
effect of once again marginalizing the Palestinian Left. Two options remain:
(1) The Fronts can stay outside the negotiations and build an opposition;
or (2) they can join the negotiations in the role of Arafat's "left wing".
Among the groups opposed to Arafat, the DFLP under Na'if Hawatmeh
distinguished itself, till a few years ago, as the only one that followed
its principles consistently to their conclusion. The fact that Hawatmeh
met in person with the PA chief signifies his movement's decision to normalize
relations. (This stands in contrast with the comparative self-restraint
of the PFLP's George Habash, who sent his deputy.) After the meeting, moreover,
the Democratic Front announced that it intends to take part in the Palestinian
delegation that will negotiate with Israel on the permanent solution.
Hawatmeh anticipated the meeting with a series of interviews in the Arab and Israeli press, in which he explained his motives for the change of attitude toward Arafat. Here he appears as the theoretician of the Palestinian Left's retreat and its acceptance of Oslo as a fait accompli – all in the name of revolutionary realism.
In response to a question from al-Ittihad (Haifa, August 6), Hawatmeh said: "Clearly, the Democratic Front has declared the Oslo agreements to be an accomplished fact. It is now our task to correct the mistakes that were made in them. Since the implementation of the accords has already begun, it is upon us to demand that the Israeli side fulfil its obligations under the agreements, in light of the fact that the Palestinian signatory has fulfilled all its commitments. I sent a letter to this effect some time ago to Arafat, calling on him to stick to what was agreed in the Wye Memorandum – and to resist Barak's proposal to merge the implementation of Wye with the final stage. I called on him to refuse the corrections to Wye that Barak is proposing."
At his meeting with Arafat, Hawatmeh demanded that he subject the final agreement to a referendum that would include the entire Palestinian Diaspora. This, he said, would correspond to the referendum that Barak has promised in Israel. The last thing Arafat wants, of course, is a referendum. In contrast with Barak, he can't be sure of a majority. To judge, however, from the joint announcement following the meeting, it seems that Hawatmeh has already softened his position. It calls on the PLO "to check the possibility" of conducting a referendum. It also calls on all the other Palestinian organizations to take part in the negotiations with Israel on the permanent arrangement, regardless of what their position may be toward the interim agreement. (Amira Hass in Ha'aretz, August 23.)
Thus the DFLP, once the staunch opponent of Oslo, now goes to Arafat to insist on its implementation. Hawatmeh stresses Palestinian unity within the framework of the (defunct!) PLO, in order to avoid admitting that he accepts the unpopular but existent PA. He says to Arafat, in effect, Take everything that Barak is obliged to give you, and then, in the final-status talks, demand sovereignty over all of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. If Barak refuses, the Palestinians must declare sovereignty over these areas, regardless of consequences.
This position of Hawatmeh's is devoid of all relation to reality. Israel has not given Arafat power over areas in the West Bank and Gaza in order that he should build up an independent, national power base. All the main sources of funding are under Israeli control. So are the energy sources, communications, borders, and security. The PA's centers of political, military and economic power are tied inextricably to the Israeli system. Arafat is in no position to make unilateral declarations or steps of any sort.
It is no longer an option to return to the "good old days", when the PLO could convene in Algeria and decide to fight the Occupation with weapons, diplomacy and mass protest, aided by Arab nations opposed to Israel and America.
Hawatmeh knows this well enough, yet he hides his head in the sand. Meanwhile, the euphoria following the fall of Netanyahu has faded. Barak is well aware that the PA may try to exploit Israeli withdrawals under the Wye Memorandum in order to create new facts as a basis for the final-status talks. Like his predecessor, Barak seeks to ensure that all progress in the interim agreement will be linked to clear commitments from Arafat concerning the permanent arrangement. In the Netanyahu years, Israel's security apparatus concluded that further pullbacks do not make sense, as long as the two sides have not yet determined what the final map will look like. This perception has not changed.
Given the PA's dependence on Israel and the US, Hawatmeh's strategy
amounts, at best, to wishful thinking. His habit of reciting UN resolutions
by their numbers, when the UN has long been no more than Washington's toothless
pet, has become a subject of ridicule.
The retreat of the Democratic Front was already well under way before
February 1997, when it called for a dialogue with Arafat, on condition
that he abrogate the Oslo accords. Now it has taken a further step back.
The Front admits that Arafat has already fulfilled his commitments under
Oslo, and nothing can be done to change that, yet it still considers it
possible to unite with him.
It is meaningless today, however, to talk of unity within the framework of the PLO. It is the PA, not the PLO, which runs Palestinian affairs in the Territories. It is the PA, likewise, which bent the Palestinian cause to bear the Israeli-American yoke. Even Fatah – the old Arafat wing of the PLO – has become irrelevant. In an interview with al-Sabar (August 11), PFLP leader Mahmoud Fanoun expressed reservations about his own organization's tryst with Arafat, and then he added: "The leadership of Fatah took part in the meeting (along with the PFLP – A.A.), but Fatah has no influence on the PA... Fatah's institutions no longer provide leadership to the Palestinian people – not since the group that negotiates with Israel took power."
Arafat understands the motives of the erstwhile left-wing opposition: it based its strategic calculations on the assumption of continuing Syrian support, and now it's in disarray. He knows exactly how bad their financial and organizational situation is. He is seeking to exploit this weakness to make them crumble from within. At that he's an old hand. In the eighties, for example, he supported Yasser Abed Rabu against Hawatmeh, bringing about a split in the DFLP from which it never recovered.
In the recent encounters, Arafat showed Hawatmeh that he's still got plenty of juice. The sequence leading up to the meetings went like this: First, the DFLP asked to sit with Arafat, but it made conditions. Then the PFLP heard that a meeting was in the offing; concerned lest it be left out, it agreed on a meeting without conditions. Arafat decided, therefore, first to meet with the PFLP. This faced Hawatmeh with a new situation. Concerned lest he be left out, he dropped his conditions.
As the talks between Israel and the PA get back on course, and as the implementation of Wye continues, the representatives of the Palestinian opposition will find themselves far removed from the decision-making process, as they have been in the case of all previous agreements.
The sole result of the meetings between the Fronts and Arafat will be
to strengthen the latter and legitimize the PA, whose image has been tarnished
of late. Arafat can use his dialogue with the Fronts as a hint to Israel
that he still has the option of reviving the PLO and the national struggle.
But everyone knows he's bluffing: he'll return quickly enough to the table.
He has no option except to continue toward the permanent arrangement. Only
in this way can he secure the PA regime, miserable and impotent though
it be. His meetings with Hawatmeh and the Habash deputy will help him,
perhaps, to shove the frog that Barak is preparing down the throat of the
Palestinian people.
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