Arafat's new message of moderation

It is hard for any political analyst to disregard the new strategic moderation, or even the bombshell that Palestinian President Yasser Arafat dropped in his Saturday speech in Stockholm.

Marking the 10th anniversary of his famous declaration in Stockholm where he accepted the two-state solution and renounced terror, Arafat gave a speech that is no less important than the one ten years earlier. In fact it is even more important. Ten years ago, Arafat accepted Israel's right to exist. On Saturday, he accepted Israel as a neighborly country with which he is ready to have open borders. He even went further down the line and suggested that Jewish settlements remain where they are, as he did not demand their dismantling, provided Palestinians are allowed to live in Israel as well.

The principal elements that Arafat set as the general framework of the final status talks are as follows: ending Israeli occupation in the Palestinian territories, solving the issue of refugees, refraining from unilateral measures, the need to continue with negotiations and providing common security and reciprocity. Those are principles that the general trend of US public opinion cannot find difficult to accept at all. In fact they should be easily accepted by a broad consensus in the US. Isn't this moderation exactly what the successive US Administrations wanted to see taking place within the PLO since the days of former national security advisor Zbiginew Brizenski's "Bye Bye PLO' statement in the late 70s until the September 1993 signing of the Oslo Accords in Washington?

The speech was the most carefully worded statement Arafat ever gave in any of his international appearances on various international platforms. Knowing he is being carefully scrutinized and that his words are analyzed under more than one microscope, Arafat adopted a balanced approach in order to meet both Palestinian and Israeli interests. So far, he may have failed to appease his Israeli foes, mainly those in the right. He may have also antagonized many on the Palestinian side as well. But he has obtained a fair chance to be heard loud and clear in the West. The lack of traditional rhetoric in his speech is a new form of science politick that the Palestinian leader decided to adopt in order to counter-balance the media machine that has mobilized the West against Palestinian rights for over half a century.

An important part in Arafat's speech was his avoidance of committing himself once again to the unilateral declaration of an independent Palestinian state on May 4, 1999. Yet he made his point clear. There is a big difference between threatening with a state declaration and the actual declaration itself. It looks like he is going to keep this card so close to his chest that even his confident aides may not have a chance to figure out what he has in mind. He called for both sides to avoid unilateral action, meaning that a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state is not on his agenda, for the time being. Yet obviously he is waiting to see what response he will get from Israel before he makes his next move. Arafat, however, did not drop the Palestinian independent state, a dream of every Palestinian. But he re-phrased his words: He urged that both sides, the Palestinians and the Israelis, to reach an agreement on the borders of the Palestinian state even before the May 1999 deadline when the interim period agreed upon in the Oslo Accords comes to an end.

Another significant remark in Arafat's speech is was his premeditated failure to demand of Israel to dismantle all the Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories. Instead, he suggested that "Palestinians and Israelis could live, work and move freely side by side in all parts of Palestine and Israel, respecting the law and sovereignty of both sides." In other words, Jewish settlements can stay provided Palestinians are allowed to live inside Israel.

On Jerusalem: Arafat sounded that he had deviated from his previously declared stands on the holy city. He did not talk of Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state, or adversely that of Israel. Instead, he suggested that the city "remain open with free access" to both Palestinians and Israelis. He stated that no solution could be reached for Jerusalem without taking into consideration all the vital interests of both sides in the holy city. Arafat, however, insisted on the need to halt all Israeli moves to change the character of the city or its demographic structure.

On the refugees question, Arafat spoke of the need for a just solution but skipped the Palestinian "right to return" term, which has always antagonized Israel. In other words, he did not propose a specific solution for the refugees though he insisted that no just solution could be reached without solving their problem. In this respect, Arafat left the door open for dialogue, hoping that both the Palestinians and the Israelis would come through with creative ideas to solve the refugees problem without necessarily giving Israel the means to claim that return of refugees is tantamount to the destruction of Israel.

On security, Arafat committed himself to not forging any military and political ties or treaties between the Palestinian state and any other state hostile to Israel. With these, he must have eased the worries of Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu who repeatedly claimed that a future Palestinian state would immediately forge a military and political alliance with Iraq. Arafat in fact called on both sides to avoid military and political treaties that are aimed at the other side or threaten its security. He promised that the state of Palestine would not join any alliance that is aimed at any other country in the region. He also committed himself to avoiding an arms race with Israel or to try to undermine Israel's security. "We believe that each side should refrain from military alliances or agreements that are aimed at the other side, or that threaten its security. For its part, the Palestinian side has no intention of joining such hostile military or political alliances or axes against any of the states in the area. The Palestinian side is ready to consider any security arrangements that do not conflict with the principle of Palestinian sovereignty over Palestinian soil."

In his address of the security considerations, Arafat repeated the historic pledge late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat made when, right in the peak of his visit to Israel in November 1977, he declared: "No more war, no more bloodshed." Arafat, however, used a different set of words, maybe less poetic but bear the same message. "There can be no alternative to resolving the disputed issues between the two sides except through negotiations which result in a mutually acceptable and agreed settlement," he said.

The new political approach that Arafat presented in his speech leaves Israel with less room to maneuver. It may even cause a debate not only between left and right in Israel but also within the right, and mainly the ruling Likud Party. The main guidelines of his speech are the ones that most foreign ministries in the world will find hard to reject. In fact, they will find them easy to adopt and promote. Even the US State Department will find in Arafat's guidelines a new strategy that makes it difficult for the US to pressure only the Palestinian side.

The most important part of Arafat's message to the West, and namely to the US and Israel, was the fact that it was drafted right in the heat of the violent clashes in the Palestinian territories between the Israeli troops and the Palestinians over the question of prisoners' release. The rough scenes of TV screens of Palestinian youths pelting Israeli troops with stones and being fired at by the Israeli soldiers did not intimidate the Palestinian leader nor did they deter him from adopting the new approach. What Arafat did last Saturday was an exact repetition of what he did during the peak of the Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation in 1988 and later in his signing of the Oslo Accords. With the very rich experience he has obtained, not only as a regional leader in the Middle East but as a figure whose network of ties covers the five continents, Arafat grasped the historic opportunity and made his move. He knew that a diplomatic offensive should follow the uprising, otherwise, all Palestinian victims would have fallen for nothing. This time, the Palestinian leader understood that his battle with Netanyahu and his government goes far beyond the borders of Israel and right deep into the thinking of the Israelis themselves, regardless of their political affiliations. He too wanted to enter the hearts and minds of the American public, and mainly the taxpayers who play a decisive role in Middle East politics.

It might be a bit early to assume what Israel's response to Arafat's new message of peace will be. Will Israel accept the olive branch that Arafat extended, time and again, or will it throw a new challenge of its own? It is not clear at all what will Israel do with Arafat's message especially when the Israeli prime minister is handcuffed with a weird coalition of extremists and when the foreign ministry is in the hands of Ariel Sharon, the minister responsible for the final status talks with the Palestinians.