PLO: Study in Frustration

The struggle now going on among the top leaders of the PLO is posing two big questions for U.S. policymakers:

Who is going to come out on top?
What then?

The answer to the first question is still unclear. Among the possible outcomes that are being watched are a split in the PLO, a relinquishment by Chairman Arafat of some of his powers, or even the ouster of Arafat himself.

On the second question, however, many observers in Washington think they already know the answer: whoever comes out on top will bring the PLO or what is left of it into the most militant, hard-line position it has adopted in nearly a decade. This would be the case even if Arafat emerged with his powers intact.

As these observers see it, what has been taking place has its roots in the growing disillusionment within the PLO with the idea that it is possible for the Palestinians to achieve self-determination—that is, get a country of their own—through diplomatic negotiation rather than through war.

Deciding on Diplomacy

Although war had in fact been the PLO's policy for the first ten years of its existence—it didn't believe Israel would ever give up captured Palestinian lands unless it was forced to—that policy was abandoned in 1974. During that year, the PLO made two momentous decisions. Firstly, it decided to try the diplomatic route to a solution. Secondly, in the hope that it might get the Israelis interested in a compromise, it tacitly dropped its claim to all of Palestine—where it had wanted to establish a secular state in which Jews, Christians and Moslems could live together—and let it be known that it would settle for a state of its own that would encompass the West Bank and Gaza (see Editorial, p. 2).

The shift in PLO policy was virtually ignored by Israel from the very beginning. Israeli officials, just as though nothing had happened, continued to talk of the PLO as being no more than a terror group which sought to take over all the former mandated territory of Palestine and drive all the Jews out of it. They also made it clear that no Palestinian state was acceptable, of whatever size, whether or not it was to be run by the PLO. It was not a favorable beginning for the diplomatic option, but the PLO decided to stick with it nonetheless.

The response to the new policy from the United States was hardly more encouraging. Even before the famous Kissinger memo to Israel of 1975, which committed the U.S. not to recognize or negotiate with the PLO, the U.S. habitually had given that organization short shrift. When PLO officials suggested to the U.S. in 1974 that they would like to talk about a deal on the West Bank, they were told to do their talking through Jordan. But not even Jordan was being given much attention then; Secretary Kissinger arranged "disengagement" agreements that resulted in a pullback of Israeli troops in Egypt and Syria, but ignored hints from King Hussein that Jordan would welcome a similar disengagement in the West Bank.

Despite this inauspicious start for its new policy, the PLO kept on with it—hoping that at some point the U.S. would conclude it was really serious and would use its leverage on Israel to get it to approve a "two-state" solution. But the U.S. insisted that the PLO—which had repeatedly, in various but indirect ways, recognized Israel's right to exist—must make an explicit and unilateral statement of recognition. The PLO did not think it was reasonable to be expected to play its only trump card without getting any assurance whatsoever that it would get something in return for playing it. But it continued to hope the U.S. would eventually see the light, and provide such assurances.

The PLO's hopes were still high last June, when for 11 months it had been adhering closely to a U.S.-mediated ceasefire on the Lebanese-Israeli border, even though the Israelis, as neutral observers on the scene testified, had broken the ceasefire frequently.

Then, the first of a series of disasters struck. Israel invaded Lebanon, and to the PLO and to many other Arabs it seemed that the U.S. was approving the Israeli action. The U.S. then mediated the withdrawal from West Beirut of PLO guerrillas, who left only after Arafat got assurances from the U.S. that it would protect Palestinian civilians after their departure. But U.S. marines left the country a few days later, and Lebanese militiamen went ahead and massacred Palestinian civilians despite the U.S. guarantees. In the meantime, the U.S. came out with the so-called Reagan Plan, which specifically opposed the creation of a Palestinian state.

All of this—and a lot more—became too much for many PLO leaders who until recently had been loyal supporters of Arafat. They feel that the PLO has tried the diplomatic route, that it went nowhere and that Arafat is to blame for not seeing this. For example, they wonder why, after all that has happened, Arafat should believe that the U.S. can be trusted or is ever likely to pressure Israel into being more accommodating, since it hasn't even been able to stop Israel from continuing to put settlements on the West Bank. The dissidents feel, rightly or wrongly, that they have little to lose and perhaps something to gain by going back to a policy of militancy. They are encouraged by some Syrian support and by the fact that they have managed to inflict almost daily casualties on Israeli soldiers in Lebanon despite Israel's massive military power there. Nothing is on the horizon that is likely to make this feeling go away. And Arafat is sure to have taken note. Whatever happens, the stage appears to be set for a period of increasing violence by Palestinian guerrillas in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East.