Israel Offers to Negotiate Borders in Bid for Peace : Mideast: Rabin government hints it may even bend on territory captured from Syria. Arabs hail new stance.

The new Israeli government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in its first appearance at Middle East peace talks, told Syria and other Arab countries Monday that it is willing to discuss withdrawing from some occupied Arab territory in exchange for real peace.

A senior Israeli negotiator hinted that Rabin is even ready to consider a territorial compromise over parts of the Golan Heights, land taken from Syria that previous Israeli governments insisted was needed for the safety of the Jewish state.

“It all depends on how negotiations develop,” said Itamar Rabinovitch, Israel’s new chief negotiator in talks with Syria, its most bitter enemy.

Arab negotiators praised the new government’s attitude as a sharp break from the uncompromising position of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who long rejected a deal over the lands Israel captured from the Arabs in their 1967 war.

“We certainly detected a change in style and approach,” chief Syrian delegate Mouaffak Allaf told reporters after three hours of talks in a State Department conference room. “We haven’t yet detected a change in the substance itself, but we did not discuss . . . details of the substance.”

U.S. officials also said that they are pleased. “It sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?” one State Department aide said. “But it will be a couple of weeks before we know for sure.”

Neither Israel nor the Arabs announced any specific new proposals as they met to start the talks, the sixth round since they began face-to-face negotiations under U.S. sponsorship last year. Indeed, Allaf and other Arab delegates took pains to reiterate their governments’ most timeworn positions--in Syria’s case, a demand for total Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights before any other issues can be negotiated.

But the tone on both sides, and from their American hosts, was unusually hopeful--born mostly of a shared belief that Rabin, unlike Shamir, is genuinely willing to consider a swap of land for peace.

Israeli negotiators opened the new round by offering a set of principles that included a formal embrace of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which calls on Israel to withdraw from at least some occupied territories as part of a peace settlement with all its neighbors. The United States and the Arab countries consider that resolution to be the foundation for any peace settlement, but the Shamir government frequently contested it.

“The new government of Israel, as you all know, has redefined its order of national priorities . . . and has set as a prime goal the promotion of peace in the Middle East,” Israeli spokesman Yossi Gal said. “. . . We certainly hope that our Arab partners at the negotiations will adopt a similar stance.”

Asked about the possibility of a compromise over the Golan Heights, Gal refused to comment.

Israeli newspapers had reported that the Rabin government planned to offer a detailed proposal for a partial withdrawal from the Golan Heights, but both Israeli and Syrian officials said that no such proposal was made Monday.

Israeli negotiators also met separately with Jordanian and Lebanese officials. They were scheduled to meet today with Palestinian negotiators, whose departure for Washington was delayed for a day by Israeli security officers at the Jordan River.

As a gesture of goodwill on Monday, Rabin canceled his government’s plan to deport 11 Palestinians accused of inciting violence from the occupied territories to neighboring Arab countries. The deportations had been ordered Jan. 2 by the Shamir government and were criticized at the time by the United States and other foreign governments.

Gal said the move was one of several “confidence-building measures” intended to convince the Palestinians that Rabin sincerely intends to reach a settlement.

Earlier this month, Rabin said that he was willing to allow Palestinian elections for an administrative council to run local affairs, as long as it was not used as a means of declaring Palestinian independence.

“When our Palestinian partners study our offers carefully, they will clearly realize that there’s plenty of beef on our proposals,” Gal said. “We expect that if we are all truly and honestly committed to achieving peace, that it will then be smooth sailing from here.”

Palestinian spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi was more cautious. “We think that they are sending us a symbolic message,” Ashrawi said. “We duly note it, and we hope that the symbolic message becomes an actual, concrete change of substance.”

The new round of negotiations is scheduled to last for almost a full month, until Sept. 23.

Monday’s sessions were also the first since former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, who launched the talks last year, abandoned diplomacy to run President Bush’s reelection campaign.

Instead, Assistant Secretary of State Edward P. Djerejian was working the telephones on Monday, cajoling each delegation toward compromise.

A New Chance at Peace

Here is background on the latest round of Mideast peace talks, which began Monday in Washington:

Who: Delegations from Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and a group representing Palestinians. When: The talks should continue for about a month.

Background: These talks are the first under Israel’s new prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, who has slowed Jewish settlements on the West Bank. They also are the first without U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III.

Topics: Palestinian self-rule in Israeli-occupied territories. A key question is whether the Palestinians will accept limited self-rule for now, running their own affairs while Israel maintains order, as proposed by Rabin.

Other moves: Rabin canceled deportation orders against 11 Palestinian activists. On Sunday, Rabin released 800 Palestinian prisoners nearing the end of their sentences, eased travel restrictions into Israel for Arabs from occupied territories and reopened Palestinian homes and streets sealed by the army.

Source: Times wire reports