Israel Jails a Top Palestinian, Probes Revolt Role : Arab uprising: The arrest of a prospective negotiator is a setback to hopes for proposed peace talks.

An Israeli court Friday ordered Faisal Husseini, a top Palestinian leader, to spend four days in jail while police investigate his alleged role in the Arab uprising.

Husseini, who had been expected to play a part in proposed peace talks, said his arrest was a pretext for the Israeli government to derail the talks.

“This is an attempt to obstruct the peace process and also to confuse the Israeli public so it will be suspicious of our peaceful intent,” Husseini told a reporter while waiting to appear in court.

Later, as he left the courtroom, he shouted defiantly, “Nothing can stop the peace process!”

The police suspect Husseini of giving $450 to young Palestinian activists so they could buy uniforms. He also is accused of condoning attacks on Israelis and the execution of suspected Arab collaborators by Palestinians.

Court sources said the information regarding the uniforms was provided by Palestinian sources and the information on his other activities by secret intelligence reports.

In recent months, hawkish politicians and ultranationalist Israeli groups have demanded that Husseini be imprisoned. His arrest comes at a time when the government is under fire for putting soldiers on trial for allegedly beating, shooting and otherwise abusing Palestinians.

As policemen stood by, Husseini was spat on and pummeled by two unidentified Israelis as he left the court. One of the assailants screamed, “Stinking Arab, we shall destroy you!”

According to court reports, the police want to question Husseini “on suspicion he assisted an illegal organization that acted within the framework of the uprising.”

If convicted, he could be imprisoned for up to seven years. He already has spent more than 18 months in jail without being charged and was released a year ago.

Husseini, 49, is associated with Yasser Arafat’s Fatah wing of the Palestine Liberation Organization. He is the scion of an old Jerusalem family and son of an Arab leader who was killed fighting Israelis in the 1948 war of independence.

Husseini’s recent efforts in support of civil disobedience had put Israeli officials on guard. Last fall, the police blocked him from holding a news conference in support of a tax revolt in the West Bank town of Beit Sahur. In December, he led a peaceful rally of Palestinians, Israelis and others at Jerusalem’s Old City. Policemen attacked the demonstrators with clubs, tear gas and jets of water. Later, the police tear-gassed the interior of a hotel where Husseini was preparing to talk with reporters.

Husseini, while expressing sympathy with the motives behind fatal attacks by Palestinians on suspected informers, also has criticized such executions. He had declared 1990 as a year to convince the Israeli public that Palestinians could be trusted to run their own affairs in a free state next to Israel.

Israel recently barred Husseini from traveling to the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, then from traveling abroad. The foreign travel ban drew a protest from the United States, but Israel refused to rescind it.

Husseini’s name has appeared on virtually every list of participants in possible peace talks. Washington is trying to convene a joint meeting of U.S., Israeli and Egyptian representatives to work out the composition of a Palestinian delegation. But the plan has bogged down over opposing demands by Israel and the PLO. The PLO wants to take part openly; Israel is demanding a veto in the matter of who can participate.

The government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir has long expressed reservations about the talks. By putting Husseini in jail, the government appears to be making it clear that anyone with nationalist aspirations is likely to be barred from the negotiations. In addition, residents of Arab East Jerusalem, where Husseini lives, would not be welcome. Palestinians in Jerusalem have demanded that they be represented in the talks.

The political implications of Husseini’s arrest were grasped immediately by onlookers at his hearing.

Tsachbi Hanegbi, a member of Parliament from Shamir’s rightist Likud Party who campaigned for Husseini’s arrest, called the Palestinian an extremist.

“He makes a profession of talking moderately, but he shares the ideas of the PLO,” Hanegbi said. “If we take him out of the process, others will arise who will be more moderate.”

But Ran Cohen of the dovish Citizens Rights Movement called the arrest “a foolish step” and added, “If someone imagines that the political process can be replaced by a criminal trial, everyone will suffer.”

Sari Nusseibeh, another prominent Palestinian leader, said Husseini’s detention is a blow to the “evolution of the Palestinian community toward talking to the Israelis.” Nusseibeh has been named in court documents as a source of PLO funding for activists in the uprising, but he has not been arrested.

Both the United States and Egypt reacted negatively to Husseini’s arrest, according to wire service reports.

State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said the United States was “surprised and disturbed” by the action.

Criticizing Israel for the second time this week and the fourth time in the past month, Tutwiler said U.S. Ambassador to Israel William Brown “has told them that this action sends precisely the wrong signal to the Palestinians at a time of intense efforts to establish a dialogue between them and the Israelis and move the process forward.”

Egyptian Foreign Minister Esmat Abdel Maguid, speaking to reporters in Washington after a meeting with Secretary of State James A. Baker III, said the arrest was “something we extremely regret; we don’t like it.”