"If I burn in Jericho, you (Europeans) will suffocate with me." Sa'eb Erakat, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation's head of the Negotiations Affairs Department, had decided to speak the language of realpolitik, or, as he put it, of "interests".
He has no illusions that peace between the Palestinians and Israel is not possible under the current conditions and that the PLO may end up destroyed. But so would neighbouring Europe's peace. And so would any goodwill the US has left in the Arab world, as Osama Bin Laden's following would swell.
Mr Erakat was speaking at the UN and Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean's weekend conference in support of Israeli-Palestinian peace.
He added that there cannot be peace without regional democracy. "Anybody who says Arabs are not for democracy is a racist."
In speaking in the idiom of realpolitik, Mr Erakat was also challenging the hard-nosed conventional wisdom.
It has been ably summarised by David Gardner, chief leader writer (and former Middle East editor) at the Financial Times and author of Last Chance: The Middle East in the Balance (I.B. Tauris).
The first of its three elements is that the West should stand by Israel, whatever it does, whatever the West thinks about some of Israel's actions.
Second, support for governments like those of Egypt is essential, for they are "moderate" states. Moderate, at least, in their relations with the West, even if the poverty and insecurity of their citizens are immoderate. The alternative, an Islamist government, is unthinkable.
Third, an alternative to the House of Saud in Arabia is unthinkable, too. Saudi Arabia sits on a quarter of the world's oil reserves: "turning a blind eye to the export of its religious extremism (and extremists) is a small price to pay for this great prize. Furthermore, look at the alternative: Osama and his friends."
Like Mr Erakat, Mr Gardner challenges this assessment. He argues the West cannot blame the Arab street for not "getting it" when it often bears the scars for these choices in the first place: "So no more handwringing, please, about chronic instability, insurrection and terrorism, backwardness and stagnation. You have connived in the 'Arab exception' for short-term advantage."
Mr Gardner acknowledges that the main choices need to be made by Arabs themselves. However, their political order cannot be explained in isolation from choices that Western governments themselves make.
He also recognises that the road forward is treacherous, with no quick fixes or assured outcomes.
Mr Gardner's depiction of the current Arab Middle East has been widely praised. It remains necessarily controversial, given that it is impossible to explain the current state of the region without apportioning responsibility and blame.
His arguments are informed by his privileged access to Middle East leaders and negotiators: from the late King Hussein of Jordan to Hassan Nasrallah of Hizbollah and the assassinated prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin of Israel and Rafiq Hariri of Lebanon, his last interviews with each being shortly before their respective murder. But his unique sources lead him to embrace an alternative view of the Middle East that, while not well established in policy-making circles, tallies with that of many scholars of the region.
Like Mr Erakat, he claims that greater democracy would help stabilise the area. Few civil liberties mean that regimes have to rely, for their security, not on legitimacy but on the army and their intelligence services. Yet, the latter also act as gatekeepers of information that a President may or may not receive. Mr Gardner shows how even a powerful President, like Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, may have important security information kept from him and have even important reformist decrees ignored by vested interests.
Some regional policy specialists argue that, if liberalising economic reforms could be enacted, then a gradual political liberalisation would follow. Mr Gardner disagrees, saying the evidence indicates that real economic reforms will only happen in the wake of political ones.
As for the Islamist alternative, he rightly distinguishes between the various groups on the wide spectrum. Most are conservative. But few have followed Bin Laden's route and corrupted the word "umma" (the world's Muslim body) to mean something akin to the fascist Volk or Razza.
The uneasy job of policy "is to ensure that these Muslims (the "great many" who "seem to partake of the same messy ambivalence towards the problems of religion and modernity as much of the rest of the world") are not driven into the arms of the jihadis - that the West, in other words, does not take bin Laden's bait."
Last weekend's conference entered into many negotiation details - from boundary disputes to water rights - all necessarily disputatious. However, it seemed that there was also an emergent agreement on the gravity of the general situation. That the only Middle East, starting from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that Europe "can live with", without being burned by its spreading fires, is a peaceful one. A fundamental reappraisal of what counts as realpolitik is needed.
ranierfsadni@europe.com