Jackson talks with PLO chief

Associated Press

Transcribed from the clipping

“… prohibits the United States from resolving the Mideast crisis. ‘Our nation must be freed from its no-talk policy with the PLO,’ he said.

‘Our discussions tonight could very well establish a beachhead for our government to see whether there is a possibility for it to assume its responsibility — which is, in fact, to open up talks and reconcile America’s several interests in the Middle East,’ Jackson said.

‘We have national interests here, we have moral interests here, we have economic interests here — all three of those interests must converge and not collide,’ he said.

Posing for photographers before the meeting began, Arafat told Jackson that Palestinians struggling for a homeland were dealing with the same problems that American blacks faced during the civil rights movement in the United States. ‘We are very happy you are here to give us strength and power for our struggle,’ the PLO leader said.

Palestinians, Arafat said, ‘suffered from the same attitude, the same circumstances’ as American blacks. But, Arafat added, quoting from the song that became identified with the U.S. civil rights movement: ‘We shall overcome.’ Jackson, who traveled to both Israel and Jordan before coming to Lebanon, is to go to Egypt today.

During his Mideast trip, he has repeatedly spoken of the need for Israeli security and Palestinian justice. He has urged the PLO to recognize Israel’s right to exist, while urging Israelis to accept the need for a Palestinian homeland. He also has called on both sides to end the ‘cycle of terror’ in the Mideast.

Jackson is here as the head of a 17-member delegation of American church leaders, but some sources believe that he may be carrying a message from President Carter to Arafat. Jackson would not comment on that, but did say that he would call on Carter to convene a conference on the Mideast, to be attended by all parties, as soon as he returned to the United States.

Jackson met with Carter on Sept. 21, before setting out on his Mideast trip. Earlier yesterday, in the Rashidiyeh refugee camp outside the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, throngs of Palestinians lifted Jackson onto their shoulders, shouting ‘Welcome brother, welcome brother.’

The crowds shouted ‘Jackson, Arafat, brothers in the struggle for freedom’ as Jackson sat on their shoulders, resting his palms on their heads. Jackson, head of the Chicago-based Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity), promised the refugees that he would try to talk the Carter Administration out of keeping that promise not to meet with PLO leaders.”

Context added by this archive

The same news agency dispatch as the Shreveport Times of the same morning, under a different headline and cut differently: this paper keeps the line about Jackson possibly carrying a message from President Carter, and drops the closing paragraph about the new peace conference.

Cite this item

"Jackson talks with PLO chief," The Philadelphia Inquirer, 30 September 1979. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1979-014. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1979-014