Top Palestinians Meet to Unify Stand : Mideast: Three withdraw resignations. However, signs of disagreement remain.

JERUSALEM —  Palestinian leaders began a wide-ranging debate Monday on Israel’s offer of self-government and how to move forward in the stalemated talks on autonomy.

With three top Palestinian negotiators charging that too much was being ceded to Israel and threatening to resign, Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat convened the movement’s leadership in a strategy session in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, to hammer out a unified stand.

Bassam abu Sharif, a top Arafat adviser, predicted that the resulting position, expected Wednesday, will soon bring Israel into direct negotiations with the PLO and propel them both toward an agreement on Palestinian autonomy.

“My own evaluation is conditions are ripe for direct talks between ourselves and Israel, and we will try to formulate a position that makes this not only possible but imperative,” Abu Sharif told The Times from Tunis.

“We want to take advantage of the improved prospects for peace created by Secretary of State (Warren) Christopher’s visit and the U.S. role as an honest broker and full partner. Our discussions are concentrating on substance.”

But other participants in the meeting were pessimistic, describing the scene as angry and the language as vituperative when the three Palestinian negotiators--Faisal Husseini, Hanan Ashrawi and Saeb Erekat--told Arafat that they were quitting because of what they regard as unjustified PLO concessions to Israel in a recent position paper.

The preliminary issues, according to well-placed Palestinian sources here, were the authority of the delegation, now composed of residents of the occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip and Arab East Jerusalem; its relationship with the PLO, which makes all key decisions, and Arafat’s own role.

The underlying issue, however, was the recent Palestinian response to Israeli proposals for self-government and to U.S. suggestions for a “declaration of principles” that would become the basis for autonomy.

The negotiators were bitter over recent PLO moves that they felt had undercut their position in the talks and over the PLO’s failure to accept their advice on the Israeli and U.S. proposals. After hours of heated discussions, the three agreed to remain in the delegation on condition that they will have a greater voice in formulating Palestinian positions, according to Palestinians here.

“They withdrew their resignation, and now they are discussing their future role in the team,” Azmi Shuaibi, a member of a leadership committee advising the delegation, said in Jerusalem.

The dispute grew out of Arafat’s decision last week to give Palestinian amendments to the U.S. draft of the “declaration of principles” to Christopher without incorporating what the delegation regarded as essential changes. Those included a definition of the territory the interim government would administer. The delegates were also angry that Arab East Jerusalem would be left totally under Israeli administration.

“This is a Palestinian document that does not have the support of most of the Palestinian leadership or of the Palestinian negotiating team,” a prominent Palestinian leader here said, “and our people will not accept it, absolutely not. So where does this leave the delegates? Where does it leave the talks?”

The delegates also gave Christopher their own paper, which is tougher than the PLO document. Both documents were published Monday in East Jerusalem’s Arabic-language newspapers.

Palestinians here and in Tunis said the real debate at the leadership meeting Monday was on the critical “must-have” elements of an agreement on autonomy.

“We are talking substance, serious substance,” Abu Sharif said. “We are discussing the jurisdiction the interim government would have, its territory, its legislative authority, the position of Jerusalem, the linkage between the interim phase and the final status.”

Abu Sharif, a leading moderate within the PLO’s top councils, said that he hopes the new Palestinian position might persuade Israel to begin direct talks with the PLO.

“Look, everyone is frustrated by Israel’s insistence that we negotiate through an intermediary,” he said. “And everyone includes more than half of (Prime Minister Yitzhak) Rabin’s own Cabinet. We want to make progress, they want to make progress--so, let’s talk.”

In Jerusalem, however, Israeli officials said they were not prepared to negotiate directly with the PLO and will continue to talk only with Palestinian delegates from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“This is a Palestinian problem,” Rabin said, describing the threatened resignations as part of “a larger Palestinian political crisis.”

“It is not our business what is the composition of the Palestinian delegation as long as it is composed of residents of the territories,” he added.

Arafat, however, may name a new delegation that would include PLO officials as well as Palestinians from the occupied lands, the East Jerusalem newspaper Al Quds reported. These might be Abu Sharif and Nabil Shaath, Arafat’s senior political adviser, both of whom have been meeting informally with Israelis.