BY JOE ALEX MORRIS JR. Times Staff Writer

BEIRUT — The 18th anniversary of the partition of Palestine Monday found the Arab world seriously divided on how to regain the lost homeland.

This was emphasized in a rally held in a movie house in Beirut. Ahmed Shukairy, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) told the crowd that his negotiations with the Jordan government last week were a failure.

Shukairy said he asked Jordanian authorities to allow full freedom of action inside the country to the PLO. This included arming frontier villages facing Israel and drafting Palestinian youths into the so-called "Palestine Liberation Army."

Haven to Arabs

Jordan, which incorporated the Arab-held West Bank area of Old Palestine during the war of partition, gave haven to most of the million-plus Palestinian Arabs who fled from what is now Jewish territory. It is the only Arab state to grant them full citizenship and equal opportunity with its own citizens.

The PLO is officially headquartered in Arab Jerusalem, but Shukairy and other top officials spend most of their time in Cairo. From King Hussein downward, Jordanian officials have emphasized that the Palestinians and Jordanians are one, and any Palestinian who wants to fight when the day of reckoning with Israel comes can join the Jordan army.

The contradiction is built into the mechanism agreed upon by Arab leaders in a summit meeting last year for the restoration of an Arab Palestine. They created the PLO and as an adjunct the "Liberation Army." And Shukairy revealed that so far 8,000 Palestinian youths have received military training in Gaza, the Palestine enclave administered by Egypt.

Military Co-ordination

At the same time, the summit delegates agreed upon a unified Arab command to build up the armies of Arab states surrounding Israel and to co-ordinate their military planning. Thus both King Hussein and PLO leader Shukairy can rightly claim the authority to recruit Palestinians for the coming battle.

The Jordanian Parliament, in secret session, unanimously approved the government's stand on the question and said it was fully in line with the policy decided upon at the Arab summit meeting.

Shukairy, who left for Kuwait shortly after the movie house meeting, was not available for comment. In any case, he had reportedly been instructed by Lebanese authorities to say nothing critical about any Arab head of state. Like Jordan, Lebanon has declined to have "Liberation Army" units based on its soil.

Original Source

November 30, 1965 | © The Los Angeles Times

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