Back to PLO Bulletin 1 November 1978

ARAB AND ISLAMIC WORLD SUPPORTS PLO STANCE

SYRIA AND IRAQ SIGN "NATIONAL CHARTER FOR JOINT ACTION"

Syrian President Assad and Iraqi President Bakr Meeting in Baghdad

On October 27 Syria and Iraq signed the "National Charter For Joint Action" after talks between Iraqi President Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr and President Hafez Assad of Syria in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

The charter was prompted by the two countries historic responsibilities and, as stated in the official declaration, by their "awareness of the great dangers facing the Arab nation because of the imperialist-Zionist alliance," which the charter goes on to say "became more dangerous with the signing of the treacherous agreements between the Egyptian regime and the Zionist enemy".

The charter covers all political, military, economic, cultural and other fields of cooperation to achieve the closest form of unionist relations. The most significant, in relation to the balance of forces in the region, is that both countries agreed to form a military cooperation committee to draw up a joint defence agreement as the basis for full military union.

The Palestine Central Council of the PLO (PCC) welcomed the reconciliation between Syria and Iraq.

Khaled al-Fahoum, chairman of the Palestine National Council, said the PCC sees the move as an important step towards consolidating the Arab front opposed to Egypt's peace policy, which he referred to as "the Camp David conspiracy."

IN LIBYA...

Yasser Arafat also received a cable from the Technical and Workers' Unions in Libya expressing support for the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian Revolution, and condemning the Camp David accords. The cable also expressed approval of the resolutions of the Steadfastness and Confrontation Summit conference which recently took place in Damascus.

IN JORDAN....

NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS CONDEMN "SELF-RULE" PLAN

In September 1978, national organizations and patriotic personalities in Jordan together issued a communique condemning the Camp David accords. The communique also condemned any separate agreement concluded between Israel and Egypt which would lead to the isolation of Egypt from the Arab nation, and which would ignore the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

The communique appealed to the Arab nation to restore its solidarity and unify itself, particularly Iraq and Syria, as well as the main factions of the Palestinian Resistance. It also requested the freezing of differences of opinion and the establishment of the Eastern Front by Syria, Jordan, Iraq and the PLO. Finally the communique called on the Jordanian government to join the Steadfastness Front and restore civil liberties, so as to confront any attempt to establish "self-rule" in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

GAMASSI RESIGNS AMID ARRESTS IN THE EGYPTIAN ARMY

General Gamassi

Informed sources in Cairo reported on 9 October, that Lt. General Abdul-Ghani Gamassi had resigned from his new post as military advisor to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. This move comes after Gamassi's recent talks with Israel and his refusal to accept Sadat's capitulation to the enemy. At U.S. insistence, Sadat accepted Gamassi's resignation due to the fact that the latter was unyielding in his approach at the Camp David Summit.

HEAD OF JERUSALEM ISLAMIC BODY CONDEMNS CAMP DAVID ACCORDS

In an interview with the Jordanian newspaper Al-Dustur, Sheikh Helmi Muhtasib, Head of the Supreme Islamic Committee in Jerusalem, condemned the Camp David accords for disregarding Palestinian and Arab rights as well as the Arab character of the Holy city. He commended the Palestinian people's resistance and solidarity inside occupied Palestine despite pressure imposed on them by the Zionist authorities.

Sheikh Muhtasib went on to say that the "self-rule" plan is inacceptable, as Palestine does not belong to the Israelis.

ISLAMIC LEAGUE: "LIBERATE JERUSALEM"

The Constituent Assembly of the Islamic World League issued a communique in Mecca on 22 October 1978, confirming the Arab and Islamic identity of Palestine and the Palestinian people's right to protect Jerusalem and its holy sites. The communique reiterated the League's commitment to UN and Arab Summit resolutions which confirm that the PLO is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, it further condemned the Camp David accords which recognise the Israeli occupation, and called upon the General Secretariat of the Islamic Conference Organization to hold an urgent meeting of the Islamic states' Foreign Ministers to counter the dangers threatening Jerusalem. Finally, the communique declared its agreement with Yasser Arafat that this year's pilgrimage (Hajj) should be under the slogan of "the liberation of Jerusalem".

ISLAMIC LEAGUE ACCEPTS ARAFAT CALL FOR MEETING ON JERUSALEM

In response to a call by Yasser Arafat, the Secretariat of the Islamic League held a meeting on 18 October 1978 to discuss the future of Jerusalem and the dangers threatening it since the Camp David agreements.

The PLO delegate to the meeting brought with him a letter and a cable from Arafat with regard to Jerusalem, to the Secretariat of the Islamic League.

MESSAGE BY MEMBERS OF THE EGYPTIAN REVOLUTIONARY COUNCIL

Prominent Egyptian politicians and officials who were members of the Revolutionary Council, which led the Revolution in July 1952, addressed an appeal to President Sadat on 12 October 1978 to renounce the implementation of the Egyptian-Israeli accord signed at Camp David.

"This accord," they declared, "is contrary to the interests of the Egyptian people as well as those of all other Arab peoples. We, as politicians who participated in the realisation of the glorious Egyptian Revolution of 1952, aspire as do all Egyptians to peace and the liberation of the territories under the yoke of the Israel occupation.

"At the same time, we know that there is a great difference between authentic peace, based on justice, the guarantee of security and national sovereignty - a peace which restores rights to those entitled to them - and a false peace which neither restores rights nor establishes stability, and which only abandons the fruits of past struggle together with hopes for the future.

"Thus we believe that it is our patriotic task to declare that the documents signed at Camp David are incompatible with all that the President of the Republic had declared earlier, and that they virtually do not differ in anything from the `peace plan' proposed earlier by Begin.

"In spite of all the aspirations of the Egyptian people and of all other Arab peoples, these documents do not even include a promise from Israel to withdraw its troops from the occupied territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. They mention neither the rights of the Arab people of Palestine to self-determination nor an Israeli undertaking to halt the establishment of new settlements in the occupied territories. Nor do they mention the PLO, which is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, nor the restitution to the Arabs of the Eastern sector of Jerusalem, where the holy places of Islam are situated."