Middle East The P.L.O.: Back Onstage

From the moment his white executive jet touched down on the Algiers tarmac last week, Yasser Arafat enjoyed a welcome befitting a head of state. An honor guard stood at attention under the Mediterranean sun as Algerian President Chadli Bendjedid pressed his greetings. Later the resilient chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization took his place among 20 Kings, Emirs, Presidents and other leaders who had assembled for a three-day Arab summit.

It was a remarkable reversal for Arafat, who had been snubbed at the Arab parley in Amman just seven months earlier. Last week, as the Arab leaders attempted to forge a united response to the continuing intifadeh (uprising) by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, the P.L.O. once again seemed to be bouncing back in Arab estimation. Earlier in the week, the Palestinian cause (though not the P.L.O.) received a boost from Secretary of State George Shultz during a five-day tour to promote a U.S.-sponsored regional peace plan. “The fate of Zionism and Palestinian nationalism are interdependent,” he said in Cairo. A day later, Shultz berated Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir for Israel’s failure to consider Palestinian rights. “The continued occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and the frustration of Palestinian rights is a dead-end street,” he argued.

Arafat’s reception in Algiers contrasted with the setbacks of the past six years. In 1982 the Israeli invasion of Lebanon scattered Arafat and the P.L.O. into exile across the Arab world. A year later, a feud with Assad led to Arafat’s expulsion first from Syria, then from Lebanon. In 1986 Jordan’s King Hussein angrily dissolved an agreement under which a Jordanian-Palestinian delegation would conduct peace negotiations with Israel.

Arafat can claim little responsibility for the eruption of anger in the occupied territories last December. It took several weeks for the P.L.O. to align itself with the intifadeh’s loose-knit command. To this day, the bulk of intifadeh authority resides with local popular committees. Still, the intifadeh’s young leaders recognize the P.L.O.’s role as a touchstone for Palestinians who live both inside and outside the occupied territories. The uprising has also improved the P.L.O.’s image. For years, violence and terror were important weapons in the campaign for independence. The intifadeh has changed perceptions, painting the Palestinians as ill-armed victims of Israeli truncheons and gunfire. Israel did its share to bolster sympathy for the P.L.O. by sending to Tunis the hit team that in April assassinated the organization’s military commander, Khalil al-Wazir.

Violence nonetheless continues to plague the occupied territories. The Israeli-appointed mayor of the West Bank town of El Bireh was stabbed outside his office last week, presumably by Palestinian radicals who have warned Arab officials against cooperation with the occupiers. A day earlier, a nine-month- old Palestinian girl lost her left eye to an Israeli rubber bullet fired during a clash between soldiers and protesters. Two days later, a Palestinian was killed near Nablus. The six-month toll: more than 200 Palestinians dead, 5,000 wounded.