A few simple words. Israel. Renounce. 242. Such is the flimsy coin of diplomacy. Yasser Arafat's decision to utter these particular words has shaken the Middle East puzzle and launched the stalemated parties on a perilous and by no means certain course toward peace. After weeks of waffling, the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization last week finally ended a crazily contorted semantic dance with what passed, for him, as plain speaking. Yes, the P.L.O. recognized Israel's right to exist in peace and security. Yes, the P.L.O. accepted United Nations Resolutions 242 and 338 as the basis for negotiations to end the Arab-Israeli conflict. Yes, the P.L.O. renounced terrorism in all its forms. Period.
For 13 years the U.S. has been waiting to hear these exact words from the lips of the man the Palestinians have chosen as their leader and others have regarded as a murderous terrorist. Historians will argue whether Arafat actually said them on Nov. 15 in Algiers, when the Palestine National Council declared an independent state; or on Dec. 7 in Stockholm, when the P.L.O. leader and a group of U.S. Jews issued a joint "clarifying" statement; or on Dec. 13, when Arafat delivered an impassioned appeal for peace negotiations to a special U.N. General Assembly session in Geneva. Each time the cotton in Arafat's mouth prevented the U.S. from hearing the precise syntax it wanted. But on Dec. 14, in a frantically arranged press conference to delineate the P.L.O. position one more time, Arafat finally got the linguistic formula right.
"As a result," declared Secretary of State George Shultz four hours later, "the U.S. is prepared for a substantive dialogue with P.L.O. representatives." With that, the Reagan Administration opened a door securely locked in 1975 when Henry Kissinger promised Israel that the U.S. would not deal with the P.L.O. unless the organization met Washington's preconditions. In the end, the words Arafat finally uttered were less significant than the intent Washington glimpsed of a P.L.O. apparently ready to swap its strategy of intransigence for the bargaining table.
The Administration's bold response was all the more remarkable for coming at a time when Mikhail Gorbachev had made U.S. diplomacy appear calcified and reactive. American willingness to talk with the P.L.O. profoundly alters the political landscape of the Middle East in ways not yet clearly outlined but fresh with the potential for progress. The announcement sent a wave of approval through the West European and Arab communities, which have long urged the U.S. to end its increasingly futile code of silence. The move shocked Israel, which now stands alone in rejecting all contact with the P.L.O. With only a few weeks left in office, Ronald Reagan gave George Bush a huge Christmas present: the opportunity to make real progress in the Middle East without taking the heat for a fiercely controversial decision.
Was the startling announcement a cave-in by Arafat to the U.S., as many Americans believe? "I didn't change my mind," said Shultz. "They made their statement clear." Or was it an about-face by the Reagan Administration cleverly engineered by the P.L.O. peace campaign, as the West Europeans, Arabs and Soviets saw it? It mattered little who claimed victory when both sides had in effect converged on the same piece of reality: they need to talk with each other to advance their separate interests.