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- WORLD, Page 37World NotesPALESTINIANSNo Joy in Algiers
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- Even the most fiery hard-liners attending the five-day
- meeting of the Palestine National Council in Algiers last week
- spoke with gloomy resignation. "There is a new reality --
- international, regional and Palestinian," said Farouk Kaddoumi,
- the Palestine Liberation Organization's foreign minister. That
- reality, most of the delegates agreed, is one in which the
- Palestinian people can no longer look either to Moscow or to
- Arab states for strong political and financial support.
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- Thus, forced to alter their strategy, the conferees
- reluctantly but overwhelmingly decided to support the Middle
- East peace conference that is being orchestrated by the Bush
- Administration. The P.L.O. leadership also accepted the notion
- of a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation. But as always, it
- left a few loopholes for further negotiation.
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- Nonetheless, the conference results brighten the prospects
- for an October peace conference. But the Palestinians were not
- celebrating. A frustrated Yasser Arafat called his job as P.L.O.
- chief "a catastrophe" and dramatically pleaded to step down.
- Said Yasser Abd Rabbo of the P.L.O. executive committee: "We are
- between the options of suicide and suicide."
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