An Interview with Douglas Feith (Continued from p.10) Outpost: What do you see the other side doing now on the negotiation front? Feith: I would say that Arafat has some serious problems. He hoped and expected and probably sotto voce was assured the process would lead to an independent PLO state. This would be something that he could defend to his own people as part of the phased plan. His nightmare was that the process would go part way, where he has made certain concessions about Israeli legitimacy that were very painful for him to make. Arafat didn't go as far as he promised to go in amending the covenant but there is certainly no question from the point of view of Arab hard-liners he has made certain concessions to Israeli government legitimacy that went far beyond anything that had been done in the history of the Arab-Zionist conflict. I think that he was willing to make those tactical concessions because he was quite confident that he was going to get his state and then he could carry on his struggle from that point forward. And as long as he won, the tactical concessions along the way would not be something that he would be judged harshly for. His nightmare was that he would make some of these concessions to Israeli legitimacy and then not get his state. And that's the situation in which he finds himself right now with an Israeli government that ran on a platform, got elected on a platform and has since reaffirmed the platform of not allowing him to have a state. So he's really caught in a bind. Part of the way the PA is dealing with this is by trying to take back the concessions relating to legitimacy to some extent. That's why you get PLO officials saying, 'When Bibi says there won't be a PLO state and there won't be any concessions on Jerusalem, this is a declaration of war,' which is to say we are going back to delegitimizing Israel and war. But I think Arafat is in an extremely weak position. He is in a pickle. He was counting on the Israeli government

delivering to him things that the Israeli government was not openly admitting to the Israeli public that it would support, like a PLO state. He was gambling on the political success of the Labor government and he lost. Outpost: What are his options? Feith: I think Arafat basically has two options. One is to resort to violence or wink at violence to pressure the Israelis. But that would endanger the Oslo structure. Or he can try to preserve the concessions that the PLO got from Labor, hoping that the Netanyahu government doesn't have enough flexibility to completely undo it, and try to advance it as much as he can and hope that in four years he gets a Labor government that will consummate it. He may take the long view. Politicians in non-democratic communities often take a longer view than politicians in democratic countries. And the proper long view for the PLO, it seems to me, is that there will be another Israeli election and it may even be in less than four years. There could be some fight over the budget that causes the collapse of the Israeli government. I'm sure Arafat is thinking, 'If I push violence right now, we could have a quick undoing of Oslo so that even if the Israeli government fell for some reason, I'd be nowhere. On the other hand, if I try to play ball, hold the fort, shore up the PA, don't give the Israeli government a clear excuse for trashing Oslo, I might be able to wait these bastards out.' Everyone is predicting another intifada but that is a pretty risky proposition for the PLO. It's one thing if there is an intifada and the PLO is in Tunis where they can try to parachute in front of the crowd and act like they're supporting it and leading it. It's another thing when the base for the intifada would be the PA-controlled areas. And if they start the intifada and the PA doesn't start helping with security in the area -- the Israeli government may have to undo Oslo and send its troops back into the PA-controlled areas. I assume Arafat will do whatever he can to prevent this.

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Outpost               - 12 -               July-August 1996