PLO GUNSMOKE
The problem remains that there are now not one but several PLOs, and that, as the failure of Britain's own recent initiatives has shown most vividly, it is difficult to find any Palestinians who are prepared publicly and unequivocally to disown the criminal violence of their more extreme compat- riots. Certainly such negotiations will not stand a chance unless the Syrian as well as the Israeli government is committed to them; and the Syrian government will only be committed to them if Moscow is too. If an agreement between the superpowers to urge their respective friends in the Middle East along this path were to be the only concrete thing to emerge from next month's Geneva summit, that meeting will have been worthwhile. But so far, the lights are still so faint they are barely visible through the gunsmoke, gunsmoke which conceals greater horrors than hopes.
Previous page
