No one knows when the flag seller’s day will come. The General Council of the Palestine Liberation Organization voted last week to table its debate on statehood until after Israel’s May 17 elections. PLO officials feared that any decision–for immediate statehood or against–would play into the hands of Israel’s current prime minister. If they voted no, Benjamin Netanyahu could claim success for his hardball policies. If they voted yes, the Likud leader had vowed to junk the peace process and formally annex all occupied land not under official Palestinian control–that is, almost the whole West Bank. Arafat doesn’t want to do anything to hinder Netanyahu’s chief rival, Ehud Barak, whose moderate Labor Party is running nostril-by-nostril with Likud in the latest opinion polls. Nabil Shaath, one of Arafat’s top ministers, says: “We would like to see a government come out of these elections that is committed to peace.”
Most observers say the threats of both Arafat and Netanyahu were pure bluff. Neither man wants the bloodshed that would follow the scrapping of the Oslo accord. Even so, the PLO chairman spent much of the last two months jetting from capital to capital for urgent talks, squeezing a nice diplomatic payoff from world powers for putting off his statehood threat. The European Union issued a communique explicitly supporting creation of a “sovereign Palestinian state.” The White House sent Arafat a letter asserting the Palestinians’ right to live as a “free people”–all in good time. “There is now no question whether there will be a Palestinian state that will have international recognition,” says Faisal Husseini, a senior PLO official. “The question is only when we should announce it.”
Meanwhile Arafat and Netanyahu are both declaring victory. The Israeli leader contends he forced the PLO to back down. On the contrary, his critics argue, Netanyahu’s tactics only alienated Israel’s allies and boosted Arafat’s international support. The PLO chairman can boast of his U.S. and EU endorsements–but at home he’s hurting. In a poll last week by the independent Center for Palestine Research and Studies in Nablus, 71 percent of the respondents called Arafat’s regime corrupt. Only 26 percent said they expect the Palestinian Authority to become more democratic. Arafat’s personal popularity, as high as 80 percent in past surveys, has sunk to 50 percent.
For once the notoriously autocratic chairman seems to care about public opinion. Last week he promised that a committee will begin drafting a formal constitution, as Palestinian moderates have repeatedly urged. He also reached out to Palestinian militants, even inviting the Islamic fundamentalists of Hamas to attend the General Council session. Even as they denounce the peace process, Hamas officials say they will take part in elections after a Palestinian state is established. Arafat’s own advisers say they aren’t sure Israel will ever set Palestine free peacefully. But Abu Dayyeh is ready with a store full of bright silk flags.
