Democratic Palestine : 10 (ص 11)
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- Democratic Palestine : 10 (ص 11)
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but also the Palestinians as a people
dispossessed and disenfranchised by
Zionism, the Israeli leadership wants to
deal with the Palestinians as a minority
population who might have some human
needs to be addressed on some level, in
order to beautify Israeli military rule and
abort the masses’ daily resistance to
occupation. Peres had already signalled
his intents by meeting with Bethlenem
Mayor Elias Freij and Hikmat Masri of
Nablus, both known as long-time sup-
porters of the Jordanian option.
New Arab summit?
To fill the gap enforced by the pre-
dictable US and Israeli conditions, the
rightist Palestinian leadership has
thrown itself into the reactionary Arab
regimes’ efforts to convene an Arab
summit. While the US seems in no hurry
to talk to the joint delegation, Arafat for
his part needs the semblance of Arab
consensus to lend credibility to his cho-
sen course before the talks with Murphy.
No Arab summit has been con-
vened since autumn 1982. This reflects
the general disarray in official Arab poli-
tics due to a number of factors-the Gulf
war, Lebanon, etc. More specifically it is
related to the reactionary regimes’ fai-
lure to bridge political differences with
Syria, or break Syria's opposition to
Camp David in its original and revised
forms. This has blocked the consensus
policy on which the Arab League is
based. So one can ask who wants a
summit now and why. What are the pos-
sibilities for its being convened? What
results can be expected?
The reactionary regimes, especially
Jordan, want an official confirmation of
their line for solving the Arab-Israeli con-
flict under US auspices. They, together
with the rightist PLO leadership, want
«pan-Arab» confirmation of the Feb-
ruary 11th accord and a practical plan for
implementing it. For this reason there
have been intermittant attempts to con-
vene a summit in the recent past, but
these have not materialized. What
makes this attempt more serious is that
the reactionary forces feel encouraged
by the differences that arose between
various nationalist regimes when the
Palestinian camps in Beirut were
besieged. The reactionaries hope to
play on these differences to attract as
many as possible to the summit.
It will be impossible to have the Feb-
ruary 11th accord and the reactionary
line adopted by a full summit. Yet the
reactionary forces may have deemed
that the time is ripe to replace the con-
sensus policy with decision-making by
majority rule. Jordan has long been
pushing for amending the Arab League
constitution to this effect, and has tacit
Saudi support in this matter.
Besides the political differences
separating the nationalist and reactio-
nary regimes, there are many other ob-
stacles to the summit’s convention, with
various regimes competing tor tneir own
particular interests. For example, Iraq
has refused to attend unless discussion
of the Gulf war is on the agenda. Arafat's
interest in gathering a reactionary con-
The Making of a Palestinian Delegate
sensus was seen in his late July visit to
Saddam Hussein, to iron out these ob-
stacles. While Arafat was in Baghdad, it
was announced by Hassan Il of Morocco
that the summit is to convene August
7th, with those who want to attend.
The intention of those pushing for
this summit could make it the most
dangerous Arab summit to date. Yet the
fact that many obstacles and unresolved
contradictions remain gives the
nationalist regimes and forces good
chances for blocking its convening or
staging a boycott that would expose the
summit’s unrepresentative _ nature.
Blocking the summit and its possible
results puts the same demands to the
progressive and nationalist forces and
regimes, as does defeating the February
11th accord and the right-wing policy
generally. The key to rising to this chal-
lenge lies in genuine alliance and sol-
idarity between all nationalist and prog-
ressive regimes and forces, especially
strengthening the Lebanese nationalist-
Palestinian-Syrian alliance. Only the
enemy forces actually profited from the
war of the camps in Beirut. It is the duty
of all opponents of the right-wing policy
to close ranks in common struggle
against the main enemies: imperialism,
Zionism and reaction.
See update on Arab summit in Arab World section,
page 20.
e
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