Word: hawatmeh
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Arafat moved Tuesday to shore up his support by meeting with Egypt?s President Hosni Mubarak and by extending an olive branch to George Habash and Nayef Hawatmeh, leaders of radical Damascus-based Palestinian guerrilla factions opposed to the peace process. Syria has ordered Habash and Hawatmeh to end their armed struggle as it prepares to negotiate its own peace deal with Israel, and Arafat hopes that reconciling with them will isolate the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas movement, whose terrorist suicide attacks are the main threat to the peace process. But Hamas may not be feeling any urgency to strike. "They...
...message, but support for him within the Palestinian camp remains unclear. Key Palestinian factions have indicated their disapproval for Arafat's initiative. A joint statement by the heads of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, George Habash, and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Naif Hawatmeh, "Arafat's Geneva statements do not commit the PLO to anything and they do not represent official policy." Arafat's statements also "contradicted the resolutions adopted by the PNC [the Palestine National Council...
Still, the statement was deliberately drawn to be ambiguous enough to prevent a walkout by George Habash and Nayef Hawatmeh, two of the P.L.O.'s more radical leaders. Shultz declared that the P.L.O. wording was not clear enough on Israel's existence and did not flatly rule out all forms of terrorism...
...pressures were still mounting on Arafat. Habash and Hawatmeh were telling him that he was going too far. "They insisted that he stop altering the meaning, as they saw it, of the Algiers declaration," said an Egyptian diplomat. "They were not prepared to go further...
...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...