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land.
    That was the basic “land for peace” arithmetic of the historic compromise. And it was in accordance with the letter and the spirit of UN Security Council Resolution 242 of 22 November 1967, which Israel had said it accepted and would honour.
    For Israel there was, however, a far greater prize on offer. There was something even more important than peace that Israel craved. It was the only thing the Zionist state could not take from the Palestinians by force.
    The cover name of that thing was recognition, meaning recognition of Israel’s “ right to exist ”. The question I have never seen asked let alone answered in literature of any kind about the Arab-Israeli conflict is this: Why, actually, was it so important for Israel’s “right to exist” to be recognised by the Palestinians? The answer, which has its context in the pages to come, is this: In international law and because of the circumstances of its creation, Israel was NOT a legitimate state and therefore did NOT have the right to exist. In international law only the Palestinians—not the United Nations or any other earthly or even heavenly authority—could give the Zionist state the legitimacy it craved.
    From that perspective the historic compromise required the Palestinians not only to make peace with the Zionist state but, by doing so, legitimise it—i.e. legitimise Zionism’s theft of Arab land up to more or less Israel’s pre-1967 borders.
    For a people emotionally committed to “driving the Jews into the sea”—a rhetorical, empty and stupid threat Arafat and his leadership colleagues never made—the historic compromise was a completely unacceptable proposition.
    And that, as I revealed in Arafat, Terrorist or Peacemaker? was why it took the PLO leader six long years—from 1973 to 1979—to sell it to the PNC. To do so he had to put his credibility with most of his leadership colleagues on the line and his life at risk.
    As it actually happened, Arafat committed himself to a policy of politics and historic compromise with Israel in 1973, but he knew that if he put the policy to a PNC vote then, it would have been rejected by an overwhelming majority.
    Over the six years from 1973 to 1979, on an individual basis, Arafat summoned to Beirut from all over the world the 300 members of the PNC. And in one-to-one conversations with them behind closed doors he made his case for the historic compromise with Israel. The initial response of most PNC delegates was outright rejection of their leader’s policy. Some told him to his face that he was a traitor to their cause and would be seen as such by their masses. Some warned him that he would be assassinated if he continued to advocate such an unthinkable compromise. Arafat refused to consider the prospect of political defeat. He listened patiently to each and all of the rejectors and then told them to go back to their places in the Palestinian diaspora, to think carefully and deeply about what he had said and, when they had done that, to visit him again. When they returned he worked them over again. And again. The measure of his success at the end of his marathon effort to turn the PNC around was counted in votes: 296 for his policy of politics and compromise, 4 against.
    On public platforms Arafat appeared to all Western observers as a man with little or no charisma of the kind that is essential for effective leadership. Yes but... the private Arafat was something else. The private Arafat had his own very special brand of charisma and the magic of it worked through his relationships with people on an individual basis or in small groups behind closed doors—when he did not have to play to public galleries.
    By the end of 1979 he had performed a miracle of leadership. Over time I got to know well all of his senior leadership colleagues including his critics and opponents. The one thing they all agreed on, as did every other Palestinian to whom I talked, was that only Arafat could have persuaded