Middle East Arafat Says Yes (Maybe)

By Scott MacLeod

Is Yasser Arafat picking up some new tricks from Mikhail Gorbachev? In his own version of a charm offensive, the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization held an unlikely and surprisingly cozy meeting in Stockholm with five prominent American Jews -- and appeared more agreeable than ever. The question as he heads toward a major performance before a specially convened U.N. General Assembly session in Geneva this week: Is it for real?

With the Swedish government acting as a go-between, the U.S. group traveled to the Scandinavian capital to seek clarification of the resolutions adopted in Algiers last month by the P.L.O.'s parliament, the Palestine National Council (P.N.C.). Those statements were widely regarded as a positive but still ambiguous step forward. Arafat responded by endorsing yet another four- point statement, this one hammered out with the Jewish leaders. It stated clearly that the P.L.O. agreed to negotiations on the basis of U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338, "accepted the existence of Israel," rejected terrorism and called for a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem. Once again the cagey P.L.O. leader seemed to be conceding to the long-standing demands of the U.S. for participation in Middle East peace talks.

At least, so thought the American free-lance diplomats, all members of the Israel-based International Center for Peace in the Middle East, whose international chairman is former Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban. "Our effort was intended to clarify the ambiguities," said Rita Hauser, a member of the Jewish delegation and a New York lawyer active in the Republican Party. "I believe we have done that." Swedish Foreign Minister Sten Andersson called the meeting "a breakthrough in the peace process."

But was it? In London the British Foreign Office cautiously decided that the Stockholm statement "confirms our earlier view that the P.L.O. are moving forward." Israeli leaders totally dismissed Arafat's actions. Secretary of State George Shultz said he welcomed the clarification but the P.L.O. still had "a considerable distance to go."

By appearing to meet the terms of his adversaries, Arafat is maneuvering Israel, instead of the P.L.O., into the spoiler's role. Yet a crucial remaining obstacle is Arafat's old habit of surrounding every statement with as much vagueness as he can get away with. To fend off criticism or even assassination by P.L.O. hard-liners who reject any moderation, Arafat insists, he must withhold concrete concessions until he sits at a negotiating table. Accordingly, the Stockholm statement accepted the fact of Israel's existence but did not acknowledge Israel's moral "right" to statehood. Arafat also seemed to hedge his renunciation of terrorism by insisting on the right of Palestinians to resist oppression "by any means at their disposal." Finally, Arafat seemed to go out of his way to downgrade the importance of the Stockholm statement when he failed to sign it and labeled it "nothing new" beyond the P.N.C. declaration in Algiers.

Yet the image that Arafat projected by his willingness to talk with the U.S. Jews was probably more important than any substance that came out of the meeting. The gathering set off fresh debate in the U.S. over how to respond to the P.L.O. gestures. This week in Geneva, Arafat has an ideal opportunity to carry the P.L.O.'s new brand of positive diplomacy a decisive step further and force his adversaries to respond in kind.

With reporting by James O. Jackson/Stockholm