Arafat Gets Boost as Jordan Backs PLO-Israel Pact : Mideast: King Hussein calls the agreement on Palestinian self-rule an important step forward. Arafat, trying to consolidate support, says ‘peace has started.’

Jordan’s King Hussein gave his unqualified endorsement Saturday to a groundbreaking Palestinian-Israeli peace accord, lending badly needed Arab backing at a time when Chairman Yasser Arafat and other leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization are scrambling to consolidate support for the plan.

Breaking his official silence on the secret PLO-Israeli negotiations that came to light last weekend, the Jordanian monarch was visibly annoyed that he had not been consulted on the back-channel talks but called the agreement they produced for Palestinian self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho “a very serious movement forward.”

“Our position is one of full support to the Palestinian independent position and to the PLO. . . . I believe it is reflecting our sense of responsibility toward our brethren . . . and toward this conflict which has lasted for too long,” Hussein told reporters in Amman, the Jordanian capital.

The king took the further step of announcing that Jordan will sever its linkage with Palestinian negotiators that has provided an official umbrella for Israeli contacts with Palestinians during more than a year of peace talks in Madrid, Spain, and the United States. Israel refused to launch the talks with Palestinian negotiators except as part of a joint delegation with Jordan.

The announcements, the first official statements of support from any Arab country except Egypt, provided a needed boost for Arafat, who is under heavy criticism both from within the PLO and other Arab nations for secretly concluding a deal that many regard as a capitulation and which they say should have been coordinated with the PLO’s own institutions as well as Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

Arafat, after winning a crucial vote early Saturday from his own Fatah organization to back the plan, moved swiftly to consolidate support, summoning his Executive Committee and quietly drafting a statement designed to meet Israel’s demand that the PLO abandon its official calls for destruction of the Jewish state.

He predicted that the PLO would be prepared to sign a declaration of principles with Israel, perhaps along with Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, “within days.”

“Peace has started,” a confident Arafat told Israel TV in an unusual interview from his Tunis headquarters.

The PLO also picked up an important endorsement from the mainstream Muslim clergy in Jerusalem, which appears to be backing Arafat despite opposition from Islamic fundamentalist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which have vowed to use force if necessary to combat the settlement.

Meeting with Arafat on Saturday in Tunis, Sheik Hassan Tahboub, head of the Supreme Muslim Council in Jerusalem, said he is satisfied that the interim settlement provides enough guarantees that Jerusalem will be protected.

He said the plan’s assurances that residents of East Jerusalem will be allowed to participate in elections and guarantees that Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem will continue to operate as part of the administration of the West Bank, together with assurances that the future of the city will be discussed in negotiations on a permanent peace settlement, provide the necessary guarantees for Islam’s third-holiest city.

“The question of Jerusalem is very important. We cannot neglect it. And we could not accept any solution without Jerusalem,” Tahboub said in an interview. “I think it has not been neglected.”

Tahboub said Arafat plans to approach both Hamas and Islamic Jihad in a new attempt to persuade them to back the plan. But neither group has appeared to be so inclined.

Hamas’ representative in Jordan, Mohammed Nazzal, vowed to “confront this plot which we will resist until the last drop of blood.” He called the agreement “a sellout of the Palestinian cause and Islamic shrines in the holy lands occupied by the Zionists.”

Arafat was even bucking stiff opposition among his allies. The Central Committee of his Fatah organization, the leading faction within the PLO, approved the interim agreement early Saturday on a 10-4 vote, with members demanding that a larger body be convened before any deal is signed.

Arafat is also scheduled to take the plan before the Executive Committee, the PLO’s 18-member Cabinet, and possibly the 100-member PLO Central Council to gain the support he needs for an agreement with Israel.

Opponents within the PLO are not only irked that Arafat launched the secret talks with Israel apparently with the knowledge of only four members of the Executive Committee, they also see the “Gaza-Jericho first” option as a sellout to Israel that is not likely to lead to a permanent peace.

“The opposition rests on the fact that what we are searching for is a stable peace that cannot be destroyed, not a volatile peace that will die quickly,” Abbas Zaki, a member of the Fatah council who led the opposition, said in an interview.

“If Israel wants to put us in a corner and use us as an instrument to stop the intifada (uprising), they can find five people to deal with them,” he said, referring to the back-channel talks that took place in Norway over the past eight months. “But 95 people (within the full Fatah council) who are prepared for revolution, it needs clear agreements and actions to be translated to reality.”

Opponents believe the “Gaza-Jericho first” option may in reality mean Gaza-Jericho last, without ever permitting Palestinians to realize their dreams of a sovereign state. They say self-rule should include authority over Israeli settlements and military posts, should include guarantees for Jerusalem and should contain stronger provisions for withdrawal of all Israeli forces from autonomous areas, not just some of them.

Equally thorny have been discussions over Israel’s demand for changes in the PLO charter to remove references to destruction of the state of Israel.

In addition to the political problems that would inevitably result from convening the Palestinians’ parliament in exile, the Palestine National Council, as would be required for any official change in the charter, opponents believe Israel is demanding too many concessions in exchange for official recognition of the PLO.

But PLO sources said a statement was being drafted in letter form that might meet Israel’s concerns without officially revising the charter. The PLO believes it already has taken the most important steps by accepting the principle of two states on the land of Palestine and renouncing terrorism, both of which were precursors to the opening of a U.S. dialogue with the PLO in 1988.

The United States has discussed Sept. 13 as a target date for signing the agreement on self-rule, and Arafat hopes to have a pact on mutual recognition in place before then. While Israel has said recognition of the PLO is not a necessary precondition to signing the peace plan, the PLO believes it is vital.