September 28, 2006

CAMBRIDGE -- In these bleakest of days for Middle East peace-making, Afif Safieh, the Palestine Liberation Organization's representative in Washington, is crisscrossing the United States with a message that the solution is not that difficult.

While many prominent politicians and analysts talk of a clash of cultures between Islam and the West, Safieh says the central problem is the Palestinians' plight.

Fix this problem, he told a group of Jewish peace activists at a morning coffee in Cambridge yesterday, and other international tensions will ease. Fix it, he told members of the World Boston international affairs forum at a luncheon, and the United States will be loved and respected, rather than feared and hated.

"We Palestinians are the key for America's lovability around the world," he told leaders of Brit Tzedek v'Shalom -- Hebrew for Covenant of Justice and Peace -- a pro-Israel group that favors creation of a Palestinian state on territory Israel occupied in the Six-Day War of 1967.

But, Safieh said, US politicians will never be convinced of that approach unless the Palestinians are joined by like-minded Jews such as the members of Brit Tzedek.

"For an American administration to have a truly open attitude toward us, it must have an American Jewish fig leaf -- respectable, if not representative, Jewish-American voices who say this is kosher," he told the Brit Tzedek group over bagels and coffee in the home of one of its members. "I am happy there is an alternative Jewish voice that is not AIPAC" -- a reference to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful lobbying group that usually supports Israeli government positions.

Brit Tzedek leaders, who say their group has 900 dues-paying members and 3,000 other supporters in Greater Boston, said they were pleased with the dialogue with Safieh. They noted their broad agreement on substantive issues such as creation of a Palestinian state and said such connections can help resurrect hopes for peace after years of Palestinian-Israeli strife and the Israel-Hezbollah war this summer.

The meeting "was important and interesting because there is so much of a perspective in the Jewish community that there is no one to talk to on the other side," said Lawrence Rosenberg , a researcher at Harvard's School of Public Health. Because of the bleak outlook, he said, "we should do things that lay the groundwork for negotiations."

The high-profile Safieh represents a change after decades in which Palestinian representation in the United States was all but invisible and the object of discontent among Palestinian-Americans.

A European-educated Roman Catholic, he speaks fluent French and English, mixes Arabic proverbs with adages from the Napoleonic wars, and served a long tour as PLO representative to London and the Vatican before moving to Washington. He has appeared on university campuses and national television with the Israeli ambassador and won plaudits in the Israeli press and diplomatic corps.

In the United States, Safieh takes one trip a month outside the capital and keeps a frenetic schedule when he travels. His three days in Greater Boston include appearances at Tufts and Harvard universities, the Episcopal Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston , a Ramadan breakfast in Malden, and other, smaller-scale events.

"He is articulate. He knows how to present his case," Nadav Tamir, the consul-general of Israel in New England, said in a phone interview. "We have to pay attention to the moderates. We have to make the distinction between the good guys and the bad guys."

Safieh condemns terrorism and advocates a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict, major points on which "we want the same things," Tamir said.

Still, at both sessions yesterday, Safieh rejected what he called attempts in Israel and the United States to demonize Hezbollah.

"Hezbollah compared with Israel is an amateur in terrorism," Safieh said in an interview. "The way Israel responded in the Lebanese conflagration was horrible." He also said that no one who fails to condemn Israeli bombings that kill Palestinian civilians is morally qualified to condemn suicide attacks.

Charles A. Radin can be reached at radin@globe.com