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To the Israeli public, the U.S. decision came as the loss of an anchor, the anchor that guaranteed the rightness of their attitudes toward the P.L.O. Only a whisper from the left judged the news positive. "There is nothing to fear from talking. We are strong enough to talk," said Haim Ramon, a leftist Labor Party Knesset member. The pervasive Israeli distrust of Arafat has yet to be replaced by even the hint of a grass-roots movement to change Israel's policy toward the P.L.O. Certainly no major politician was ready to consider any change in attitude. Few in Israel expressed relief, much less victory, over Arafat's much belated acknowledgment that Israel had a right to exist.
In the West Bank, however, jubilant Palestinians toasted one another with mabrouk, the Arabic word for "congratulations." To the foot soldiers in the intifadeh, the yearlong rebellion in the occupied territories that has won worldwide sympathy for Palestinian national aspirations, this was the first tangible victory. "If we succeeded in forcing America to sit with the P.L.O., we will force Israel to recognize the P.L.O.," crowed a 17-year-old Palestinian activist from Jerusalem.
To the Arab states long pledged to the P.L.O., the U.S. move vindicated a trend they have encouraged in recent years: greater moderation and realism on the part of Palestinian nationalists. Even George Habash and Nayef Hawatmeh, leaders of two notoriously radical pro-Syrian factions within the P.L.O., hailed the American decision as a triumph for the intifadeh. But the renegade group of Abu Musa issued a veiled threat. "We fully reject the Arafat concessions and will prove our stand practically, in a way that neither Israel nor the United States would expect," said a spokesman in Damascus.
It is precisely that ability to wreck the dialogue with one well-placed Molotov cocktail that makes this tentative and guarded rapprochement so fragile. Anti-Arafat radicals in the occupied territories are reportedly planning to launch attacks against Israeli targets to show that Arafat's renunciation of terrorism does not apply to them. It may be cynical but it is not unthinkable to fear extremist Israelis might seek a similar escalation of violence to prevent a dialogue that they like no better. Another danger for Arafat is the one that has kept him on the move for more than two decades: the possibility of assassination by those who reject his views.
For Arafat, however, the gains made last week far outweigh the risks. Washington in effect recognizes the P.L.O. to be the sole, legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. The implicit recognition marks a personal triumph for Arafat, who has been down so often but never out. His organization has been splintered by factionalism and scourged by armies from Jordan to Israel but never destroyed. He has promised his people much but ! never delivered. In 1982 he was drummed out of Lebanon, and just a year ago he was all but ignored at an Arab summit that consigned the Palestinian problem to the dead file. Yet a combination of events and his uncanny talent for survival have pushed him back to the top.