Is it possible to repeat a Madrid Conference where the Palestinians will be represented by leaders outside the Palestinian Authority or by persons who do not belong to the top PA leadership?
To the historic Madrid Conference which was convened shortly after the Gulf War all the parties involved in the conflict were invited. An important issue faced by the conference organizers was the Israeli objection to participation by the Palestine Liberation Organization which had led the struggle for Palestinian rights. Israel hoped to undermine the peace efforts by demanding impossible conditions from the Palestinians. Israel also wanted to handle its dispute with the Arabs without any outside mediation.
Contrary to Israel’s expectations, the Palestinians agreed to send a delegation composed of Haider Abdul Shafi and Hanan Ashrawi — both of whom were comparatively unknown in those days. It was at this conference that the Palestinian right to exist was internationally recognized.
The current strategy of the Jewish state is seemingly to stop all talks of a Palestinian state by destabilizing the Palestinian leadership and keeping Yasser Arafat under house arrest. Israel has also been striving to include the Palestinian leaders on a list of universally condemned people and pariahs such as Mulla Omar and Bin Laden.
Palestinian leaders must think hard in order to find a way out of this most recent impasse. It was a bare 10 weeks ago that those leaders were celebrating the first official announcement by a US president supporting the establishment of a Palestinian state. Such a statement obviously pleased neither Sharon nor his government.
Arafat’s apparent failure to make the Israelis stop attacking the Palestinians has not added anything to his domestic image. The TV reports of blasts in which Israeli women and children were lying in pools of blood and ambulances rushing to transport the injured and dead reminded Americans of the scenes of Sept. 11 and were also extremely damaging to Arafat’s image abroad.
The situation has been even further exacerbated by Israel’s seizure of a ship allegedly carrying weapons to Palestine. Arafat did not know how to handle the situation while the Israelis succeeded in convincing the Americans that Arafat was behind the arms shipment.
Now the Arab issue has taken a new turn. The demand which the Arabs will make now is for Arafat’s freedom and not the return of their territories and the establishment of a Palestinian state. Arafat can still spoil the Israeli scheme by finding a new Palestinian leader with full freedom to conduct negotiations. This does not mean that he must be removed from his position. It is merely an attempt not to keep all the issues in Arafat’s pocket.
If such a policy were followed, it would strengthen his hand. At the same time, it would also serve as a countermove against Israeli attempts to destroy the PA. By curtailing Arafat’s freedom, Israel wants to confuse the Palestinian ranks and make sure that the Palestinian problem remains unsolved.
