Middle East Ready to Deal?

In the Middle East proposing peace can be a dangerous move. That lesson was forcefully driven home last week when bitter feuding broke out among Palestinian factions over an unusually conciliatory statement written by Bassam Abu Sharif, chief spokesman for Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat. Abu Sharif's key proposals: 1) direct negotiations between the P.L.O. and Israel over a future Palestinian state, and 2) a referendum in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip to prove that their Palestinian populations recognize the P.L.O. as their legitimate representative.

The statement was distributed in early June at the Arab summit in Algiers but was not widely discussed until it was published last week in the Arab press. "The means by which the Israelis want to achieve lasting peace and security is direct talks, with no attempt by any outside party to impose or veto a settlement," wrote Abu Sharif. "The Palestinians agree." The P.L.O. plea went on to give a qualified endorsement to United Nations Resolutions 242 and 338, which recognize Israel's right to exist within secure borders, and to state explicitly, perhaps for the first time, that the P.L.O.'s goal "is not the undoing of Israel but the salvation of the Palestinian people and their rights."

The Algiers declaration was quickly disavowed by five hard-line Palestinian groups opposed to any compromise with Israel. One faction called it "high treason," while another demanded that Abu Sharif be brought to trial. Terrorist Abu Nidal's organization issued a warning that seemed to threaten Abu Sharif's life.

Given the hard-liners' fierce reaction, it was not surprising that as of last week the ever cautious Arafat had not made any public comment on what Abu Sharif himself called a "policy breakthrough." But U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Murphy, touring the region last week, was encouraged by the statement's lack of "strident rhetoric" and called it a "contribution to rational discussion" of the Arab-Israeli dispute.