Palestinians Find Irony in Israeli Policy : Occupation: One week, nationalist leaders are lectured on how to avoid attack by right-wing radicals. The next week, two of them are jailed.

It was late last week, and a group of senior Palestinian nationalist leaders was being lectured by an Israeli police officer on how to avoid attack from right-wing radicals.

Although the officer was deadly serious--vengeance attacks between Israelis and Palestinians have become frequent--the Palestinians were somewhat giddy at the lecture. After all, when the police come calling on Arab political leaders, it is usually for questioning or arrest. The Palestinians laughed out loud when the policeman explained how to tell if their phone was tapped.

For a pair of the listeners, Radwan abu Ayyash and Ziad abu Zayyad, the real punch line came Tuesday. The Israeli Defense Ministry ordered them jailed for six months without trial for their involvement in the nearly 3-year-old Arab uprising against Israel in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The irony of the situation--one week warning the Palestinians against death threats, the next week throwing them in jail--helps explain local skepticism about the rationale for the arrests of Abu Ayyash, head of the Arab Journalists Union, and Abu Zayyad, editor of a Hebrew-language Palestinian weekly.

It was the first time in more than 18 months that such figures, sometimes referred to by Palestinians as “parlor room leaders,” had been detained. It is common knowledge that leaders like Abu Ayyash, 40, and Abu Zayyad, 50, are connected with the Palestine Liberation Organization, have a hand in editing inflammatory underground leaflets and perhaps help distribute money to Arab activists.

Both were frequently visited by foreign dignitaries. Both were in contact with Israeli officials. Abu Ayyash, who heads the Arab Journalists Assn., was supposed to be part of a Palestinian delegation had American-brokered plans for peace talks borne fruit.

So why the sudden urgency in jailing the pair?

One theory is that the government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, always sensitive to being seen by its coalition allies as being soft on Arabs, did so in order to ease criticism that it was losing control of events in Jerusalem, the scene of recent intercommunal violence. With every stabbing or incident of arson, right-wing politicians have called for the heads of Palestinian leaders.

Besides the two arrests in Jerusalem, a Gaza activist was imprisoned without trial for a year.

Indeed, several rightist leaders in Parliament made a list of 11 Palestinian leaders and have been openly lobbying the government to arrest all of them.

Meanwhile, leftist opposition parties, in a published statement, said the arrests indicated “another sign of the loss of sense” by the government.

Some commentators linked the arrests with Thursday’s second anniversary of the Palestinian declaration of independence, a festive day in the West Bank and Gaza.

Predictably, Palestinian leaders saw political ends behind the arrests of Abu Ayyash and Abu Zayyad. One, Faisal Husseini, said the government aimed at calming “the more extremist in Israel” who are upset because the Arab uprising against Israeli rule had once again attracted international attention.

“This . . . has proved another time that the Israeli government is not interested at all in any peace talks, in a peace solution,” said Husseini, a prominent pro-PLO activist who himself has been put in jail without trial for periods totaling 18 months.

Husseini is frequently the target of rightist demands for jailing. He can be sure the police know where he can be found; last week’s briefing on self-protection for Palestinian leaders was held at his house.