The President of the Palestine Authority, Mr Yasser Arafat, has so far resisted strong pressure from Israel, the US, Jordan and Egypt to make certain concessions to achieve the resumption of substantive negotiations with Israel. He has been labouring under even more powerful pressures from his own people.
The main organisation which has captured Mr Arafat's full attention is his own Fateh movement, the president's popular power base in the West Bank and Gaza. Since the Netanyahu government began construction of the settlement at Jabal Abu Ghneim/Har Homa near Jerusalem in March, the Fateh Higher Committee, headed by Mr Marwan Barghouti, has taken the line that the Palestine Authority should not return to the negotiations until work is halted. The committee laid down the party line in May.
Although Mr Arafat has attempted to sidle into talks with Israel by agreeing to meetings of the three Palestinian-Israeli low-level committees, he has not yet succumbed to pressure to restart either full-scale high-level co-operation between his security services and those of Israel or to resume talks on Israeli re-deployment or final status issues, the core of the Oslo process. This week Mr Arafat's security chief, Mr Muhammad Dahlan, toughened the Palestinian stance by adding that security co-operation would not resume until Israel lifted the closure on the Palestinian territories.
The fact that the Legislative Council's damaging report on corruption in Mr Arafat's cabinet was debated publicly was also the work of the Fateh Higher Committee.
Mr Barghouti, a member of the Council, told The Irish Times that Mr Arafat had "to listen to the legislature and tailor his policies to meet the demands of the people and their representatives". Fateh's main demand is that Mr Arafat must dismiss some of his ministers, characterised as "symbols of corruption".
During his long career Mr Arafat has relied on local Fateh leaders to assert and maintain political control in their areas and direct mass protest action. But he has rarely listened to what the leaders themselves have said. Those days seem to have gone. Fateh leaders in the Hebron area have told Mr Arafat that they can not guarantee his hold over the populace, particularly the restive youth, unless he listens to their advice. In addition to pressure from "his people", Mr Arafat is under increasing pressure from the increasingly critical and vocal Islamist opposition. He has so far refused to indulge Israel by making mass arrests of Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders and activists and dismantling the Hamas infrastructure of clinics, schools, welfare offices and other institutions.
After the bombings in February and March of 1996, which killed 60 Israelis, Mr Arafat imprisoned 1,500 militants, 100 to 150 of whom remain in detention. But he is no longer in a strong enough political position to repeat this feat. In the nearly four years since the Oslo process began, Mr Arafat has constantly turned to the international community and the Arabs to maintain momentum. They have failed him, and he has no choice but to listen to his own people. The Palestinian Minister of Higher Education, Mrs Hanan Ashrawi, said the Palestinians were now "cornered" in their tiny enclaves, where the standard of living has fallen by 25 per cent this year and unemployment is 60 per cent.
Israel might have made a mistake in cornering the Palestinians. While a guerilla leader, Mr Arafat was often "cornered" in dangerous and difficult situations. He was always at his best during such times. Indeed it can be said of him "the best of times" have often been "the worst of times".