Arabs Skeptical of U.N. Proposal : Mideast: In West Bank, Palestinians allege they were attacked by disguised Israeli agents. They doubt that international observers could help them.

Michael A. would seem to have good reason to want U.N. observers of some sort overseeing the West Bank, where his hometown of Beit Sahur is located among olive groves and pasture.

Last Monday, he and witnesses said, a group of demonstrators were set upon by clusters of Israeli security agents wearing Arab headdress and carrying concealed pistols. When the impersonators got close, they opened fire and wounded about 20 demonstrators, all below the waist.

Michael A. was hit four times in the right leg. His friends collected 9-millimeter shells from the scene to show that pistols, not rifles, were used and that the shootings were not by soldiers firing from afar in response to protesters hurling rocks.

An army spokesman said that four youths were wounded in the incident and that they were attacking soldiers with stones. “These were not innocent protesters,” said the spokesman. As is customary, the spokesman declined to comment on either the weaponry used or the mode of military operation, disguised or uniformed.

As with many incidents that take place in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the truth will probably never quite be known, but Michael A., interviewed in a Jerusalem hospital, is skeptical that any team of U.N. observers would make any difference.

“There are plenty of people here observing. You, a journalist, are here, and what good does it do?” he asked. “There is the Red Cross and the United Nations already around, and what comes of it? Just more killing.”

His impassioned response was typical of residents in Beit Sahur, a Palestinian town next door to Bethlehem. The violence in the wake of last Sunday’s killing of seven Palestinian day workers by a deranged Israeli had left at least 15 Palestinians dead, including one 8-year-old boy, at the hands of Israeli soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. An Israeli and an Arab civilian were slain in separate knifings inside Israel.

Beit Sahur residents seemed in no mood for diplomatic news. Vengeance was more on their minds.

“We are treated like animals, and we should strike back,” said Taher, a 30-year-old activist in the intifada, as the 29-month-old Arab uprising is known.

U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III made news mid-week when he said the United States might consider supporting sending U.N. observers to the occupied territories. The State Department clarified the U.S. position a day later, saying that Washington would back a U.N. investigative team to study the situation of the Palestinians.

On Friday, Yasser Arafat, the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, addressed the U.N. Security Council in Geneva and requested that a U.N. force be sent to protect Palestinians.

Israel opposes all these proposals, especially the idea of a U.N. observer force to be permanently established in the occupied lands.

“We are very seriously concerned that U.N. observers would not contribute to tranquility in the area at all; that those people who incite to violence in the area and engage in violence would feel encouraged to engage in violence,” Foreign Minister Moshe Arens said.

Israeli officials contend that there are already plenty of observers in the West Bank and Gaza, citing the many journalists, foreign and domestic in Israel. But more and more, reporters are barred from entering the occupied lands by military order; all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip was put off limits to the press the first three days of this week.

Palestinian leaders welcomed the possibility of U.N. intervention, even in the watered down form of a one-time investigation.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” said Radwan abu Ayash, a top contact for the Palestine Liberation Organization in Jerusalem.

Although the need for U.N. activity was couched in practical terms by Palestinians--they view it as a form of protection against the abuses of occupation--the political ramifications of such a move are clear to both sides of the conflict.

For Israel, it would presuppose a resolution to the conflict that the government precludes: that the land is destined to be taken away from Israeli control.

“There would be nothing to negotiate,” a Foreign Ministry official said privately.

What the Israeli government finds unacceptable is just what Palestinians want: international recognition, by way of U.N. operations over a specified geographical area, of the boundaries of a future Palestinian state.

“We would hope the U.N. team would be dispatched to the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem,” said Faisal Husseini, who is viewed as the leading public figure in the Palestinian uprising.

U.N. protection in the West Bank and Gaza has been a long-time demand of the PLO. The United States has traditionally opposed such a program, so Baker’s seeming willingness to consider sending peacekeepers came as a surprise.

These concerns seemed far away from Beit Sahur, which gained prominence in the Arab uprising last year when its inhabitants staged a tax strike that the Israeli authorities tried to break by sacking private homes and businesses.

Bethlehem and Beit Sahur, along with several other West Bank towns and villages, have also been targeted by special units of the Israeli army and intelligence whose members dress up in Arab headdresses and the masks used by uprising activists. Sometimes commandeering Arab cars, the agents infiltrate groups of stone throwers and sometimes try to shoot ringleaders.

One of the most notorious of the cases occurred last year in Bethlehem, where plainclothes agents disguised themselves as tourists and killed a man who was throwing stones at soldiers in an alley.

Undercover gunmen have posed as reporters in order to approach wanted activists in safety. There have also been cases of street ambushes of suspected activists in which the gunman has blended into busy street scenes while awaiting his target.

Witnesses in Beit Sahur say the masked Israelis approached two groups of youths in town as they were marching Monday night. The Palestinians became suspicious of the newcomers, who declined to identify themselves.