PERSPECTIVE ON ISRAEL : Turning a Fumble to an Advantage : The deportation of 400 radicals, while it enraged the Arab world, leaves a slim opening for fruitful talks with PLO delegates.

The willingness of Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin to receive another senior U.N. envoy charged with resolving the immediate humanitarian problems facing the 400-plus radical Islamic Hamas deportees stranded in no-man’s-land in southern Lebanon was little more than a move to stall a threatened Security Council debate and vote to compel Israel to repatriate the Palestinians. Some agreement may be reached on providing food and shelter for the deportees, but there is no likelihood that the matter of their ultimate political fate will be resolved at this juncture.

Whatever justification Israel offered for the drastic step it took in ordering the hasty collective deportation, without benefit of any serious process of law, it is clear that Jerusalem did not anticipate Lebanon’s refusal to take in these deportees. Once again, Israel underestimated the capacity of Syria’s President Haffez Assad, the man behind the decision, to thwart unilateral Israeli moves on Lebanese soil.

With this bold move and the attendant press coverage, Syria has also gone a long way to increase the standing of Hamas, now seen in the Arab world as a full-fledged political organization challenging the Palestine Liberation Organization’s internationally accepted status as the “sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.” The PLO was obliged to call Hamas leaders to its headquarters in Tunis after the deportation in an effort to reassert its position in the crisis. Hamas delegates arrived three days after the date set by the PLO, flaunting their confidence and the increased standing of Hamas.

It was an open secret that Israel’s previous, Likud-led government aided and abetted Hamas in an effort to divide the Palestinians under Israeli occupation. Many Israelis decried this short-sighted policy and warned that the intra-Palestinian violence it helped spawn would soon turn toward the killing of Israelis. Once the PLO agreed to Palestinian participation in the Madrid conference peace talks, the Hamas radicals could be expected to make every effort to derail the talks. Lately, the PLO-Hamas rivalry has intensified to the point that Hamas is suspected of plotting to kill the PLO-sanctioned participants in the peace talks.

Whatever fears they may harbor as to Hamas, the PLO leadership in Tunis had no recourse but to support the deportees, call for their immediate return and threaten to boycott the U.S.-led peace talks. Moderate Palestinians committed to the peace process are worried that the stalemate over the deportees’ fate will immeasurably add to Hamas’ appeal and to the strength of Syria’s position in controlling the Palestinian future.

When Yitzak Rabin became prime minister last summer, it was hoped that he would act boldly, like South Africa’s President F. W. de Klerk, seize the occasion to recognize the “enemy” and begin a constructive dialogue leading to a meaningful Palestinian autonomy. Instead, he chose to lock Israel into the sterile arrangement demanded by his predecessor, Yitzak Shamir, as a condition to attending the Madrid Conference, which excluded from the negotiating table any Palestinian with PLO credentials or legal residence in Jerusalem.

To this day, Rabin has refused to deal directly with Faisal Husseini, the acknowledged leader of the Palestinians in the occupied territories, because he is a PLO member and a Jerusalem resident. Rabin makes the specious argument that direct talks with Husseini would promptly place the status of Jerusalem on the negotiating table and would be tantamount to recognizing the PLO’s ultimate objective, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Yet Nearly half the Israeli population favors direct talks with the PLO, according to recent opinion polls, as do 47 out of the 120 Knesset members.

With the peace talks set to resume in February, the deportee crisis offers Rabin a way out of the political dead-end he inherited from his predecessor. He could begin immediate discussions on the fate of the deportees with Faisal Husseini and other PLO notables. This would open the door for a natural expansion of the Palestinian delegation to the peace talks to include Husseini, as well as the delegation’s spokesperson, Hanan Ashrawi, and several key advisers who serve as the delegation’s bridge to the PLO in Tunis.

If there is any silver lining to the dismal deportation saga, it is the opportunity that it affords to break the impasse in the peace talks and allow the PLO to reach a negotiated settlement with Israel. Nothing short of success in the talks will defuse the threat that Hamas poses to the Palestinians in the territories, to Israel, and to the prospects of a peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Israel needs to extend its hand to the PLO in order to isolate Hamas zealots and to bring about the political settlement that Rabin promised in his election campaign. If he needs courage to make the right decision, Washington ought to tell Jerusalem that it would follow suit and reopen its own aborted dialogue with the PLO.