Israeli leaders believe Jordan`s decision to dump the Palestine Liberation Organization as a partner in peace efforts is a ”historic opportunity” to achieve a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
But West Bank Palestinians Thursday were indignant, depressed and fearful of internecine violence should any among them agree to abandon the PLO leader. ”We are unable to continue to coordinate politically with the PLO leadership until such time as their word becomes their bond, characterized by commitment, credibility and consistency,” Hussein said Wednesday in a televised speech in Amman that was closely monitored by Israeli leaders here and by Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Hussein said he was abrogating the Feb. 11, 1985, agreement that he and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat had reached on a joint approach to peace. But he said, ”Its principles and tenets . . . will continue to embody the foundations governing relations between the Jordanian and Palestinian peoples with regard to equality of rights and obligations in facing our joint destiny.”
Israeli leaders interpret that statement as a direct appeal by Hussein to West Bank Palestinians to join Jordan in peace talks with Israel without the PLO.
”Hussein is making a clear distinction between the Palestinian people and the PLO,” said Abba Eban, chairman of parliament`s Foreign Affairs Committee and a former foreign minister. ”He is now turning to the Palestinian people in the territories and asking them if they want him to continue along the road to peace. He`s going over Arafat`s head.”
Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin said Hussein`s speech ”provides a historic opportunity” for the West Bank Palestinians by relieving them of a PLO leadership that has ”torpedoed all attempts for a solution to their situation.”
”They have to understand that they have no other choice,” Rabin said in an interview on Israel Television moments after Hussein finished his speech.
”Hussein has made an impassioned call on the Arabs in the territories to do something. What are they waiting for? They`ve been given a golden opportunity. Let us go with Hussein toward peace negotiations.”
Hussein`s speech jolted West Bank Palestinians after a year of hope and expectations for progress.
”No Palestinian leader will accept an alternative to the PLO,” said Mustafa Natsche, the deposed mayor of Hebron, a hotbed of Palestinian nationalist sentiment in the West Bank.
Most other West Bank leaders refused to comment on Hussein`s speech, and the few who agreed to be interviewed didn`t want their names disclosed. Many spoke of confusion and distress in the West Bank. There were also fears that the king`s speech would ignite a round of terrorist attacks by Arafat lieutenants seeking to discourage any moves to fall in behind Hussein and striving to maintain the PLO`s dominant position against rival Palestinian groups.
Western diplomats here said Hussein`s speech had not closed all doors to Arafat but made it clear there could be no resumption of discussions until the PLO found a formula that would recognize Israel`s right to exist.
”He is putting a lot of pressure on Arafat by making him responsible for the deadlock,” one diplomat said.
In Baghdad, Iraq, Arafat said his joint peace effort with Hussein had not ended but had stopped for further consultations. He said the PLO was ready to participate in any international peace conference on the basis of legitimate Palestinian rights and all relevant United Nations resolutions.
Natsche called Arafat`s demand that the U.S. recognize the Palestinian right to self-detetmination ”a just condition” for the PLO`s agreement to acknowledge Israel`s existence and enter peace talks.
His sentiments were echoed by other pro-PLO leaders and ordinary residents, who rejected Hussein`s bid to appeal over Arafat`s head to West Bank Palestinians for negotiations without the PLO leader.
One prominent Palestinian called Hussein`s speech ”a slap in Arafat`s face.”
The Hussein-Arafat agreement of a year ago offered peace to Israel in exchange for its withdrawal from all land captured in the 1967 Mideast war and the creation of a Palestinian state confederated with Jordan.
In his speech, Hussein said the 1985 accord launched ”a grueling year of intensive effort” that ended Feb. 7 when Arafat concluded a two-week visit to Amman without meeting conditions the U.S. had set for dealing with the PLO. Central among those conditions was PLO acceptance of UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, which recognize Israel`s right to exist within secure and recognized boundaries in return for its withdrawal from occupied Arab territory.
In October, Hussein said, he told Arafat that he needed a written agreement to Washington`s conditions, which also included renunciation of terror.
”But our brethren in the Palestinian leadership surprised us by refusing to accept Security Council Resolution 242,” Hussein said, despite the fact that U.S. assurances ”met the PLO`s requirements” and ”reflected a significant change in the United States position” by accepting a role for the PLO in the peace talks.
Arafat has refused to accept the UN resolutions because they define the Palestinian question as a refugee problem and fail to mention Palestinian self-determination.
At the UN in New York, Jordanian Foreign Minister Taher Masri said in an interview, ”We feel we have reached the end of the road for the peace process.”
An East Jerusalem newspaper editor, Hanna Siniora, one of two Palestinians accepted by Israel as proposed members of a joint Palestinian-Jordanian negotiating team, said any future peace moves now face a ”torturous and lengthy” process.
”I guess this phase of the negotiations has reached a dead end,” he said.
