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expressed grave reservations about the consequences of
creating a Palestinian state. But after Arafat has been
received at the White House on an equal footing with Rabin and
elections are held in the occupied territories, a Palestinian
state is inevitable sooner or later. Its leadership will
emerge from the electoral process provided in the interim
agreement, which will also clarify which Palestinians have
recognized Israel.

It is clearly not the Hamas or the Hezbollah fundamentalists
controlled by Iran, nor the alphabet soup of PLO factions
(DFLP, PFLP, PLF, etc. - all based in Damascus) which condemn
the agreement. Does Arafat then speak for the PLO or for a
rump group? Any political leader must rally his constituency.
And in the past, the PLO has been an umbrella organization
including terrorists, rejectionists, and radicals, who cannot
all have been converted to views contrary to those of a

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lifetime. Internationally, the PLO had relied on the radical
wing of the so-called Non-Aligned Movement. With the best will
in the world, Arafat will be unable to endow the agreement
with the nearly mystical significance given to it by many
Israelis. Even granting Arafat's unreserved commitment to
peace, the pressures on him will make him an increasingly
complicated, perhaps even irrelevant, partner. If he pursues a
PLO or radical consensus, he will be ambiguous; if he goes
beyond his constituency, he may be removed or become
irrelevant.

Of all the Arab adversaries of Israel, the Palestinians are
among the most attractive humanly, and those with the greatest
grievance. Egypt and Syria have insisted on their historic
borders - Egypt successfully, Syria, so far, inconclusively.
But once these are satisfied, they have no necessary incentive
to maintain their hostility to Israel except to show

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[Y]

9

solidarity with Palestinians. But even the most moderate Palestinians will find it difficult to look across whatever the dividing line turns out to be - at the lights of Jerusalem or Tel Aviv - without ambivalence. When they recognized Israel, did the Palestinians mean that they have become genuinely reconciled to its existence? Or was it with the same attitude that France renounced Alsace-Lorraine to Germany in 1871, as a stage in a continuing struggle?

I asked this question of a PLO representative after the signing ceremony. He answered: "I consider myself as coming from Jaffa. My children, who have never lived in Palestine, will also tell you they are from Jaffa." At the same time, he was voluble - and I believe sincere - in protesting his yearning for peace. The follow-on negotiations must strive to remove this ambivalence; they must make clear that there is a point beyond which Israel should not be asked to make

X

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concessions and that Israel's international support has been
enhanced by the risks it is taking for peace. They must also
demonstrate to the Palestinians that their dignity is an
essential aspect of a final peace. The major tasks will be to
help Palestinians and Israelis to learn to live side by side.

These sweeping agreements have occurred at a moment of
weakness for both sides. The PLO is being squeezed. In the
Gulf War it lost the financial support of the moderate Gulf
states and the military and intelligence support of Iraq.
Since the collapse of Communism, it has lost most of its
friends outside the region. The growth of radical
fundamentalism threatens it within the Muslim world. The PLO
in fact needed the deal in order to survive, and its weakness
was a reason for Israel to proceed lest it be left with only
fundamentalists as partners. But this raises the question
whether Arafat is strong enough to undertake the cooperative

X

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approach needed for a permanent agreement or whether, to secure his base, he will feel obliged gradually to step up the pressure on Israel. In his television appearances in America, he did little to foreclose the latter option.

As for Israel, much of its body politic seems to be psychologically drained. It yearns for an end to non-recognition, to intifadas, and the sense of permanent danger. It therefore has endowed the word "peace" with a quality for which there is no historic warrant whatsoever. In the past, recognition has not been an obstacle to war or even to conquest; almost all wars in history have started between nations legally at peace. Most Israelis expect from peace an almost Biblical conversion in which tensions disappear and they live in brotherhood with their Arab neighbors. No single agreement can fulfil this hope. Such a result can come - if at all - only at the end of a long historical process. The