Regional Outlook : Fueling the Flames in Jerusalem : The shootings at the Temple Mount may have been expected to rouse the Palestinian uprising. But division in the movement may make the incident just another violent episode.

The prescribed three days of mourning for Palestinian victims of last week’s shootings at the Temple Mount had not passed, yet the minds of three activists of the Arab uprising, lunching at the National Palace Hotel here, had already turned to other preoccupations.

They had received word that the Palestine Liberation Organization and a group of Islamic fundamentalists had signed an agreement ending strife that was threatening to pull the uprising in on itself. The PLO would give the fundamentalists full rights to schedule their own strike days in protest of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip while the Muslims promised to stop speaking badly of the PLO during sermons in the mosques.

“We have to take care of problems like this. These things are eating us up,” said one of the activists, all of whom are affiliated with the PLO.

Although the bloodshed in Jerusalem’s Old City has refocused world attention on the ongoing intifada, or Palestinian uprising against Israel, activists say that disarray in organization and tactics continues to bedevil their cause. The growing appeal of Islamic groups undermines PLO control of the uprising, which in any case has been slipping. Fatigue among the general population has been aggravated by events in the Persian Gulf; the region had been a source of extra income for many Palestinian families with relatives working abroad.

There has been a striking psychological shift as well; Palestinians have tied their own fate to the fate of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who along with his invasion of Kuwait has championed their cause for independence. His bluster against Israel and his strongman image have eclipsed the intifada as the talk of Palestinian towns and villages.

As inflammatory as the Temple Mount incident was--21 Palestinians were killed by army gunfire after raining stones down on nearby Jewish worshipers at the Western Wall--it is not likely to reverse this trend of watching and waiting. “All eyes are on Saddam,” said a PLO activist. “Everything else is in second place.”

Another activist noted that while the Temple Mount clash brought worldwide condemnation, it is the threat of Saddam Hussein that seemed to provide a push for concrete steps in the United Nations.

In any event, Arab leaders say that for the moment, they have two main concerns: To keep factional divisions under control and to maintain enough organizational cohesion to keep up the pace of general strikes and occasional demonstrations that have been the backbone of the nearly three-year-old nationalist uprising.

No new tactics are in the works. “Strategy? There is none for the moment,” remarked one of the diners at the National Palace.

Competition for supporters among the 1.5 million Palestinian residents of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip has become more and more violent between the PLO and the Islamic group Hamas--an Arabic acronym for Islamic Resistance Movement. Hamas has gained ground as Palestinian residents grow disenchanted over lack of progress toward the PLO’s professed goal of setting up an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza. Hamas rejects the compromise and favors a Muslim state in all of historic Palestine, including present-day Israel.

Street fights between PLO and Hamas gangs became commonplace last summer; one in Tulkarm, that ended with three deaths, was set off when Hamas youths wrote anti-PLO graffiti on town walls. The recent agreement between the PLO and the Muslim group is supposed to end such conflicts.

Still, the battle for the soul of the intifada goes on. At the Temple Mount--which is sacred to Jews as the site of the biblical first and second temples, but also to Muslims who have worshiped at the Al Aqsa and Dome of the Rock mosques there since the 7th Century--many of the rioters belonged to Hamas. They had gathered to head off a reported effort by a Jewish group to lay the foundation stone for a new Jewish temple on the site, which is known to Muslims as Haram al Sharif, or the noble sanctuary.

Faisal Husseini, the PLO-affiliated leader who is under investigation for inciting the unrest, came to the site only to show his face. He had neither the authority to calm the rioters, as his lawyers claimed he tried to do, nor to incite.

“He simply had to be there,” said an associate. “Otherwise, Hamas would be seen as the sole defender of the mosque.”

Husseini’s need to assert a questionable authority points up another weakness of the intifada: a lack of identifiable and accepted leaders. Many underground leaders have been jailed, deported or killed.

Once not long ago, some reporters were visiting Faisal Husseini’s house. While he was being interviewed, masked youths began to throw stones at the cars parked outside. Husseini went to his front porch to disperse the crowd, which responded by throwing stones at his home.

After 34 months of the uprising, street protest comes in spasms. In May, after a lone Israeli gunman shot and killed seven unarmed Palestinians, protesters attacked army outposts and patrols; 21 more Arabs were shot dead in the next three days. The fever subsided, and only occasional fatal confrontations took place through the summer.

In the meantime, an explicit policy by Defense Minister Moshe Arens was designed to reduce casualties and keep the intifada out of the news. Soldiers kept to main roads and were ordered to hold their fire at demonstrations. At the same time, the government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir put aside all proposals that had been designed during the last two years for peace talks with Palestinians.

Two incidents appeared to threaten the less-confrontational army policy. Last month, an Israeli soldier took a wrong turn into a Gaza Strip refugee camp, was stoned and burned to death in his car. The killing produced a clamor for tougher measures from rightist Israeli politicians and peace talks from the left.

Then came the Temple Mount outburst on Oct. 8. Finger pointing began immediately. Former Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin attacked his successor for taking too soft a line. He accused him of complacency in thinking the intifada was over.

Some Israeli observers contend that Israeli soldiers and police face a fundamental dilemma: Their presence in Arab towns and villages is often provocative. But their absence (the numbers at the Temple Mount at the time violence broke out was below normal) may invite unbridled turbulence.

“It’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation,” said Arab affairs expert Asher Susser. “Sometimes, violence breaks out because there are no soldiers or police. Sometimes it breaks out because there are.

“The intifada is not a series of isolated riots. It is total rejection of Israeli rule, and Israel is not prepared to devote total manpower to controlling it. Israel will probably keep on doing what it has done, and once in awhile, there will be a big confrontation.”

KEY DATES OF THE UPRISING

* Dec. 9, 1987: Intifada (uprising) begins when rumors sweep Gaza Strip that collision of Israeli truck and two Palestinian vans the previous day, in which a number of Palestinians died, was deliberate and in response to murder of an Israeli shopkeeper. Violence spreads to West Bank.

* April 16, 1988: Second in charge of Palestine Liberation Organization, military chief Abu Jihad, gunned down in Tunisia.

* Nov. 15, 1988: PLO proclaims establishment of independent Palestinian state, votes to accept U.N. resolutions that implicitly recognized Israel.

* Dec. 14, 1988: Reagan Administration announces opening of a “substantive dialogue” with PLO. Move follows statement by PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat in which he satisfied U.S. demands regarding renunciation of terrorism and acceptance of Israel.

* May 30, 1990: Israeli security forces foil attempt by armed Palestinaians to land speedboat on beaches in central Israel. Spokesman in Baghdad, Iraq, for Palestine Liberation Front, a PLO faction, claims responsibility fo failed attack.

* June 20, 1990: President Bush announces suspension of dialogue with PLO because of it’s failure to condemn the abortive raid.

* Oct. 8, 1990: Israeli security forces shoot and kill 19 Palestinians who were tossing stones down on Jews worshiping at Western Wall in Jerusalem. About 140 Arabs and more than 20 Israelis are wounded.