Palestinians `still knocking at door'

Mr Yasser Arafat looked vulnerable on the stage of the Socialist International Congress. Not only was he physically dwarfed by the men around him, the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority was outranked by the Israeli speakers whom he greeted. The Labour Party of the Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak - and the former prime minister, Mr Shimon Peres - enjoys full membership in the International, while Mr Arafat's Fatah is only an observer.

The outgoing president of the socialist body, Mr Pierre Mauroy, reassured Mr Arafat, saying "we want to be able to greet you one day as the president of the Palestinian state".

But Mr Arafat postponed declaring statehood to avoid embarrassing Mr Barak. In the six years since Oslo, he hasn't ceased hugging and kissing world leaders, engaging in telegenic hand clasps with Israelis and signing a half dozen agreements to implement unimplemented agreements.

Despite his efforts, Mr Arafat now seems to fear the Palestinians have been relegated to history's wayside.

He evoked a great paradox - that "the century coming to a close has been one of national liberation for so many peoples throughout the world".

Apartheid has ended in South Africa but "our Palestinian Arab people is still knocking on the door of international legality, striving to exercise their inalienable rights . . . and to overcome the historical and human oppression inflicted upon them".

Mr Arafat reiterated the litany of broken promises: UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, commitments made by the international community at the time of the Madrid Peace Conference, a slew of declarations.

"We do not demand absolute justice, which does not exist in this world," he said. "We aspire, however, to that real-world justice which consists in equality, fairness and equity."

Outside the congress, President Jacques Chirac received Mr Bachar Al-Assad, the son of the President of Syria, Mr Barak and Mr Arafat in rapid succession.

The French Foreign Minister, Mr Hubert Vedrine, departed for Damascus, Beirut and Cairo, and negotiations on a framework for final status negotiations began in the West Bank town of Ramallah - three years late.

Yet if you listened carefully to Mr Arafat and Mr Barak it was obvious that Palestinians and Israelis have made little progress.

After Mr Arafat's speech yesterday, Mr Barak contended that UNSC resolution 242, which demands that Israel give up the territories it captured in the 1967 war, does not apply to the West Bank and Gaza Strip because there were no international borders within mandate Palestine.