WASHINGTON — The Palestine Liberation Organization has been evicted from its Washington office.
The PLO was routinely late in paying its rent at its K Street office not far from the White House, but sources say the management company, Cushman & Wakefield, used the late payment this time as an excuse to evict it for political reasons.
Demonstrators have protested outside the office at least twice recently, a concern to the proprietors.
Since the Palestinian Authority is not a state and does not therefore have an official embassy, the office rented by the PLO has served as the PA’s de facto diplomatic mission.
Saed Hamad, a Palestinian official in Washington said, “We are no longer there.” He declined, however, to explain the circumstances of the eviction and referred the Jerusalem Post to the chief Palestinian representative in Washington, Hassan Abdel Rahman, who did not return calls.
A representative of Cushman & Wakefield at the building also declined comment, saying leases are confidential.
The PLO is now scurrying to find new accommodations.
Meanwhile, legislators on Capitol Hill are pushing through several versions of a bill that would urge President George W. Bush to prohibit a PLO office from operating since PA Chairman Yasser Arafat has failed, they say, to fulfill his commitments under signed accords with Israel.
Some legislators say that if the United States authenticates documents obtained by Israel showing financial transactions between the PA and the PLO-linked Aksa Martyrs Brigades — recently added to the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations and subject to sanctions — then the mission must be shut down under U.S. law.
The State Department was notified of the eviction last week. It has not, however, been able to assist the Palestinians in their effort to secure a new office space, an official explained.
The official stressed that the “eviction does not come as a result of any action by the U.S. government. The PLO office in Washington is not an embassy, nor has it ever been accorded any of the immunities or privileges of a diplomatic mission. The question of rental payments and related matters between the PLO office and its landlord is not subject to our regulation,” the official added.
The PLO mission in Washington has for years been a political football.
In 1987, an anti-terrorism act passed by Congress prohibited the maintenance of a PLO office in the United States. Since 1994, however, successive administrations have invoked a waiver in the law that has allowed the mission to be kept open.
In 1997, under President Clinton, the government briefly prohibited the office from identifying itself as the PLO’s representation, but allowed it to keep functioning.