Middle East Non Grata

By Jill Smolowe

After three days of intense, sometimes emotional debate, the time had come to vote. Normally, delegates in the U.N. General Assembly cast their ballots electronically, pushing buttons at their desks and watching the results -- green for yes, red for no -- wink up instantly on two display boards overlooking the hall. This time, 18 Arab countries insisted on a voice vote as well. By a draw of lots, Britain went first, and abstained. Next came Uruguay, with a decisive si. Soon there was a oui and a da, then the Arabic assent na'am. As the U.N.'s six official languages rang out, a chuckle began to rumble through the chamber. The exhausted delegates seemed to have found a release for pent-up tension in the very sounds they were hearing. By the time China offered the Mandarin affirmative zan cheng, the chuckles had widened into open laughter.

Despite the nervous mirth, the vote was thoroughly earnest. By a resounding count of 151 to 2, the U.N. deplored the U.S. refusal to grant a visa to Yasser Arafat so that he could address the General Assembly. The Arab- sponsored resolution gave Washington 24 hours to "reconsider and reverse" its decision. As expected, Secretary of State George Shultz, who made the decision in the first place, refused to yield, reasserting that Arafat, as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, was an "accessory" to terrorism and consequently barred under American law from entering the U.S. Two days later the General Assembly passed a second resolution, by a vote of 154 to 2, announcing a plenary session in Geneva, Dec. 13 through 15, for the express purpose of hearing Arafat speak.

For the P.L.O., the timing could not be more favorable. The meeting will come only a week before the first anniversary of the Palestinian intifadeh in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. That uprising, more than any other event, has thrust the Palestinian issue to the forefront of the international agenda. Just as repressive Israeli measures altered some perceptions about the Palestinians and generally bolstered international sympathy for their cause, Shultz's refusal to grant a visa put Arafat in the headlines and renewed debate on whether the U.S. should acknowledge the P.L.O. as the sole representative of the Palestinian people.

If Shultz intended to depict Arafat as a common terrorist, he failed. Arafat emerged from the confrontation with his reputation enhanced -- as something of a martyr to Shultz's intransigence. If the Secretary sought to deny Arafat the kind of prominence that a U.N. visit would bring, he produced the opposite: a publicity bonanza for the chairman. "Had the U.S. let him come, he would have been news for a day or two," said an Arab diplomat. "Now he will be a hot news item for weeks." When the General Assembly convenes in Geneva, Arafat can expect to bask in the warmth of considerable international sympathy and unified Arab support.

While the P.L.O. appeared to be the winner in the diplomatic skirmish, the Reagan Administration emerged as a clear loser. Rarely had the U.S. been the target of such overwhelming international criticism. Even Washington's most loyal allies in Western Europe lined up against Shultz, challenging the legality and the political soundness of his position. While Britain abstained from both U.N. votes, British officials made it clear that they too favored an Arafat appearance before the U.N. Israel alone stood with Washington, casting the only other no vote and hailing Shultz's refusal as a "brave decision."

Many State Department officials, eager to distance themselves from what they regarded as a peevish stance, characterized Shultz's no to Arafat as a "personal decision." They were worried that it would undermine the peace efforts of moderate Arabs and cast doubt on the U.S. commitment to a negotiated settlement in the Middle East. They also fretted that the Shultz rejection made a mockery of America's commitment to free speech and jeopardized the Reagan Administration's recently improved relationship with the U.N. Nonetheless, both Reagan and President-elect George Bush supported the decision, although Bush made it clear that he had not been consulted.

The legality of Shultz's decision remained in dispute. While the State Department has sole discretion for extending visas to foreigners, the first of last week's U.N. resolutions maintains that the anti-Arafat ruling violates the 1947 Headquarters Agreement between the U.S. and the U.N. That accord states that the U.S. will not keep out anyone who has business before the world body. Among international lawyers, the consensus was that the U.S. had breached its responsibility. "It is quite clear that the U.S. decision is wrong legally," said Cyrus Vance, former Secretary of State and an international lawyer. U.S. courts would probably agree. Earlier this year, when Washington relied on an antiterrorist statute to try to close down the P.L.O.'s observer mission to the U.N., a federal court ruled that the legislation did not supersede U.S. obligations under the 1947 agreement.

The U.S. claim that Arafat's presence would endanger national security was, as put forward by the State Department, self-contradictory. It was based on an ambiguously worded U.S. law that, according to Shultz, conditions the Headquarters Agreement on a U.S. right "to safeguard its own security." Shultz's statement denying Arafat's visa asserted that P.L.O. members were excluded from the U.S. "by virtue of their affiliation in an organization which engages in terrorism." One paragraph later, the statement pointed out that since visas are routinely issued to members of the P.L.O. permanent observer mission at the U.N., Arafat's group had "ample opportunity to make its positions known."

Thus Shultz seemed to be saying that it was up to him to decide who could speak for the P.L.O. and who could not. Moreover, given the fact that Arafat would be watched by U.S. security agents, if only for his own protection, the invocation of a security risk was, as a British diplomat put it, "nonsensical." Many diplomats were no less disturbed by the inconsistency of the U.S. position, noting that Arafat had been granted a visa to address the U.N. in 1974 at a time when his agenda was far more radical.

Others were concerned that Shultz's maneuver would slow the momentum generated in Algiers last month when Arafat, under pressure from Arab moderates like Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, persuaded the Palestine National Council to take limited, though promising, steps toward recognizing Israel and renouncing terrorism. Jordan's King Hussein protested that the U.S. decision was aimed "at stifling the positive, moderate Palestinian voice," and the P.L.O's second-in-command, Salah Khalaf, warned that it was "tantamount to an open call for extremism." Certainly the rejection did nothing to encourage Arab moderates or to force a clarification of the Algiers declaration.

The cries of indignation all but drowned out Shultz's charges against Arafat. The Secretary argued that since the Cairo Declaration of 1985, in which the P.L.O. renounced the use of terrorism outside the occupied territories, the P.L.O. had been involved in "probably more than 30 instances" of terrorist violence. The State Department's counterterrorism office cites eleven incidents since 1985 conducted by the Hawari group, which is described as a special operations outfit within Fatah, the P.L.O. faction headed by Arafat. It also charges another P.L.O. outfit, Force 17, with 15 terrorist operations, including a 1985 attack in Cyprus that killed three Israelis. Jerusalem retaliated with a strike on the P.L.O. headquarters in Tunis.

The most significant incident in Shultz's mind, however, involved P.L.O. hard-liner Abul Abbas, who was convicted in absentia by an Italian court for the murder of American Leon Klinghoffer during the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro. Shultz was outraged when Abul Abbas was permitted to participate in the P.N.C. proceedings in Algiers. Shultz maintains that as chairman of the P.L.O. and head of Fatah, Arafat must have known about such activities and provided support. "So he condones it, he is an accessory," Shultz said, "and therefore we connect him with these acts."

When Arafat spoke with TIME in October, he distanced himself from Abul Abbas. "He was elected," he said of Abul Abbas' membership on the P.L.O. executive committee. "I can't prevent that." Arafat deplored the U.S. failure to acknowledge P.L.O. interventions that he says saved American lives. He claimed that in 1976 and again in 1982, following secret negotiations with U.S. officials, the P.L.O. oversaw the safe evacuation of U.S. citizens from Beirut.

In the days ahead Washington can expect more denunciation, and Arafat's appearance before the U.N. in Geneva will no doubt be an acute embarrassment for the U.S. But Arab and European diplomats regard the Arafat flap as one of the last hurrahs of the Reagan Administration, and are willing to grant the Bush Administration a clean slate. If Arafat's standing is strengthened by his performance in Geneva, Bush will be hard-pressed to avoid dealing with him in the months ahead.

With reporting by Ricardo Chavira/Washington and B. William Mader/United Nations