Comrade Abbas reinvents ties with Moscow

By Andrei Ostalski
BBC Russian Service

Russian-Palestinian relations may seem pragmatic now...

An unusual diplomatic incident occurred the first time Yasser Arafat was received by Boris Yeltsin in the Kremlin.

Witnesses say the Palestinian leader threw himself at the Russian president and began to embrace, kiss and even stroke him.

Considering their difference in size, it was a comic sight. It was impossible to tear Arafat away from the embarrassed Yeltsin, who did not know how politely to put a stop to the kissing.

But it was clear what Arafat intended to say: don't imagine that I was particularly attached to all those Brezhnevs and Chernenkos, I didn't much like them, to be honest, and you did well, brother Boris, to chuck them into the dustbin of history. I would not have chosen to deal with them, but I had to.

This was partly true. Fatah, Arafat's political faction, was not a Marxist organisation at all and other Palestinian groups, such as the Democratic for the Liberation of Palestine, or even the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, were ideologically closer to the Soviet Communist Party.

'Classic English gentleman'

But this week something very different will take place.

Always restrained and correct, like a classic English gentleman, newly elected Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is quite unlike his predecessor.

...but not so long ago emotions prevailed

And Russian President Vladimir Putin, who seldom expresses emotion, is no Boris Yeltsin.

Judging by their style of discourse, the two leaders ought to like each other.

But more important will be the briefing notes on Mr Abbas prepared for Mr Putin in advance by the Middle East department of the Russian Foreign Ministry and the corresponding department in the Foreign Intelligence Service. (These, by the way, could be quite different.)

The old struggles

Mr Abbas is one of the original leaders of the Fatah movement and the Palestine Liberation Organisation, with direct responsibility for Palestinian "military operations".

As a PLO leader in the 1960's, Mr Abbas would have been an old acquaintance of Soviet Moscow's, a good military comrade, who could be relied upon in the struggle against the Americans.

This same struggle was the sole foundation of Soviet Middle East policy - a policy which in no way contributed to peace between Palestinians and Israelis.

But times have changed, and so has Mr Abbas.

'No longer our man'

The biography that is promoted now reports how Mr Abbas established unofficial contacts with Israeli left-wingers, among them Zionists, as far back as the 1980s.

He was already, his supporters stress, 30 years ago, trying to distance himself from "military operations" and he tried to dissuade Arafat from supporting Saddam Hussein and then toured the Gulf states to apologise.

Undoubtedly, Mr Abbas was, from the Palestinian side, the main architect and motor behind the Oslo agreements.

The new Mahmoud Abbas is seriously inclined to seek compromise. He is well liked in Washington and Jerusalem.

Some people in Moscow are spreading alarming reports that he is "no longer our son-of-a-bitch".

But, on the other hand, these are new times even in Russia. And even though anti-Americanism is in vogue, as it was before, pragmatic solutions are also being sought there too.

With the proviso, of course, that Moscow's "special interests" will be taken into account.