A VOICE FOR ARAFAT?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504820035-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 35
• Publication Date: October 16, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504820035-8
ARTICLE AP? AR,E,D
ON PAGE '( 23 _
WASHINGTON POST
16 October 1985
Rowland Evans and Robert Novak
A Voice for Arafat?
Following the euphoria over capture of four
Palestinian hijackers, influential figures in and
outside the administration are pressing Presi-
dent Reagan to deny the Palestine Liberation
Organization and gasser Arafat any voice in
negotiating West Bank peace as a poor-rela-
tion partner of Jordan's King Hussein.
The most powerful move to sever all PLO
participation in West Bank peace talks is Is-
rael's. The most formidable weapon is Israel's
new claim to mneac a a rote igence per-
sonally linking Arafat to terrorist operations.
The pro-Israel lobby here and its staunch allies
in Congress are quietly aiding Israel's efforts
to write Arafat out of any Mideast peace ne-
gotiations, even if that strands King Hussein.
Reagan has not yet decided whether or
when to follow the Israeli lead. Asked recently
about Arafat's direct complcaty, national se-
curity adviser Robert McFarlane said it had
-not been "established." But the emotional
tenor of anti-Arafat rhetoric the past few days
will play into the hands of Israeli Prime Minis-
ter Shimon Peres when he arrives here this
week to play his anti-Arafat trump card.
The force of American public opinion now
running against Arafat helps explain the un-
precedented reversal at the United Nations
Monday, postponing Arafat's long-scheduled
speech there this week. "If there had been an
actual vote on delaying it," a key U.S. diplo-
mat at the United Nations told us, "it would
have gone against the United States by prob-
ably 120 to one, the one being us." There was
no vote; U.S. Ambassador Vernon Walters ar-
ranged the switch with diplomatic quietude
and no floor debate.
If the PLO chairman had appeared on the
podium of the United Nations as planned, the
president would have felt obliged to cancel his
own speech there next week. The flow of anti-
Arafat sentiment in the United States is strong
enough to embarrass Reagan politically if he
had followed the Palestinian leader in the
United Nations.
Israel's claim to have bagged an intelligence
windfall implicating Arafat in tie i ac n of
the c i s uro will be Exhibit One w Hen
Pe rce late we c.-
One Israeli official credits this intelli ew:
with demonstrating a ute, comp to and
irrefutable oroof that ratat mew a
operation before it was to begin." The Proof
has yet to ere.
t mte s owed accuracy
a week earlier the PLO"s Tune
headquar-
ters was bed exact minutes a er t
start of a secret t level meeting scheduled to
last 90 minutes. with at in t e chair. at
Israel did not know was that Arafat had suddenly
been called to a meeting with the Tunisian prime
minister and had gone there without disclosing
his destination to anyone.
If Peres, with backing from the pro-Israel
lobby and congressional bloc, persuades Rea-
gan that Arafat is personally accountable for
PLO terrorism, the president may find it hard
to continue his support for King Hussein's
West Bank peace formula: a Jordanian-Pales-
tinian delegation, including PLO-connected
members, to negotiate with Israel.
Israel's target is to bury that formula. If
Peres achieves that, it would complicate what
little remains of the president's chance to find
a peaceful solution on the West Bank. The
complication is fundamental: the Arab world
long ago designated Arafat's PLO as sole rep-
resentative of the Palestinian people. Without
some PLO membership in the Jordan-Palestin-
ian delegation, Hussein foresees meaningless
negotiations. The product of those talks-if
there were one-would appear to have no
standing on the West Bank.
Beyond the PLO and the Palestinians, more-
over, the United States might find the Arab
world mobilized against it if the Israeli case
against Arafat and the PLO is sold to Reagan.
Also against it, at least publicly, would be such
U.S. allies as Portugal, Greece, Spain and Aus-
tria, all having diplomatic relations with the
PLO.
But with today's anti-PLO, anti-Arafat emo-
tioeW-climate, political problems with foreign
states may count less than normal. Serious
strains have developed with at least four pro-
U.S. countries long counted as allies: Egypt,
Tunisia, Itgly (which is now in a parliamentary
crisis over the freeing of Mohammed Abbas),
and Morocco. Moroccan King Hassan was due
on a high-level visit here yesterday but can-
celled at the last minute because of growing
anti-Americanism in the Arab world.
The recent pattern of Reagan's Mideast di-
plomacy shows why Peres thinks he can per-
suade the president to erase Arafat and the
PLO from the West Bank blackboard. If he is
wrong, the cause will not be Peres' failure so
much as Hussein's retention of Reagan's true
loyalty. That is one constant in a Mideast
where Israel's sway continues to enlarge.
V 1986. New America Syndicate
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/03/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504820035-8