As the world awaits Palestinian action on amending the Palestine National Covenant, sections of which call for the destruction of Israel, Jewish and Palestinian opponents of the peace process are re-evaluating their stances and adjusting to the new reality.
In the wake of the Jan. 20 Palestinian elections, key members of the opposition Likud Party say that if the covenant is changed, then it would be time to re- evaluate their entire posture toward Palestinian autonomy.
Likud leaders met Monday in Jerusalem to consider recognition of the Palestinian Authority under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, on condition that the covenant is revoked.
Leading Likud figures, among them Knesset member Tzachi Hanegbi, spoke out in terms of “recognizing the new realities.”
Tel Aviv Mayor Ronnie Milo urged his Likud Party to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization itself, the way the Labor-led government did in 1993.
Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu now grudgingly concedes that if he is elected prime minister, he would talk with Arafat and the Palestine Authority, and would not reverse the limited Palestinian autonomy that is already a fait accompli.
“As much as I oppose the agreement, it’s facts on the ground,” he told journalists attending the Sixth International Conference of the Jewish Media this week in Jerusalem.
“I won’t initiate sending tanks in to send them out,” he said, adding that his efforts would focus on retaining the more than 70 percent of territory in the West Bank not yet passed to Palestinian control.
He also said he would favor a Palestinian entity but would stop it “from expanding to a full-fledged state.”
On the Palestinian side, there is movement toward the political center as well.
Palestinian rejectionists, such as Nayef Hawatmeh of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, expressed their readiness to come to the self-rule areas and take part in the historic meeting of the PNC to amend the covenant.
Some 167 of the 204 PNC members living outside the West Bank and Gaza Strip have already filed official requests with the Palestinian Authority asking to return to the territories.
The Israeli government said it would allow all members of the PNC, even those opposed to the peace accords and those with Jewish blood on their hands, to attend the council’s sessions.
But the road to the political center, at least on the Palestinian side, may not be all that smooth.
Salim Za’anun, acting chairman of the PNC, in a provocative statement this week, put forth four conditions for convening the PNC.
They include: extending the Palestinian Authority throughout the West Bank and the Gaza Strip; releasing 6,000 security prisoners from Israeli jails; Israeli permits to members of the PNC to return to the Gaza Strip and West Bank permanently; and electing representatives from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to the PNC.
Za’anun’s conditions indicated a willingness to meet the Israelis halfway, but at the same time to demand a high price in exchange.
But that price at present is too high for the Israelis to pay.
Meanwhile, Palestinian leaders are faced with the reality that no Israeli government could go to elections with the peace process in one bag and the Palestinian Covenant unamended still in another bag. One would have to be dumped.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
