Rabin, Arafat Seek to Shore Up Pact : Mideast: The Israeli leader, acknowledging discord, will meet the PLO chairman to tackle security, political issues as opposition to the autonomy accord grows.

With the success of the accord on Palestinian self-government at stake, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat will meet Sunday in an effort to resolve differences over implementation of their peace accord and ensure that Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and West Bank begins next week.

Rabin, acknowledging deep disagreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization on crucial political and security issues, said that he and Arafat would recommit themselves to the basic “declaration of principles” signed in September and tackle the major unresolved issues when they meet in Cairo.

“It is very important that efforts are made at the most senior levels, theirs and ours, and to meet in order to clarify these (disputed) questions,” Rabin said Friday, stressing that renewal of the underlying agreement is important as opposition to it grows among both Israelis and Palestinians.

Arafat, who has insisted that Israel begin its pullout from the Gaza Strip on Monday as laid down in the autonomy agreement, said in Tunis, Tunisia, that following the weekend talks Israeli troops would begin withdrawing and the first steps could then be taken toward establishment of a transitional government.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher met with Arafat on Friday, delivering Rabin’s letter accepting the PLO’s proposal to meet in Cairo. Christopher described the upcoming discussions as “very important . . . in which the parties can reach agreement on subjects that will enable that (implementation) to go forward.”

“I will have a meeting with Mr. Rabin, and I hope we will have the opportunity to implement accurately, on time, what has been agreed upon,” Arafat said, accepting the letter from Rabin.

Israeli and PLO officials, however, do not expect total agreement but are hoping that “80%, probably 90%, of the issues,” as an Israeli put it, can be resolved by Rabin and Arafat in direct talks and that the rest can be settled on the basis of new instructions to the two negotiating teams.

Nabil Shaath, the PLO’s chief negotiator, said that even if Arafat and Rabin reach a broad understanding Sunday it will still take up to a week to translate that into a detailed agreement.

“Our will is to finish on Dec. 13,” he said, referring to the deadline for a withdrawal plan laid down in the original agreement. “But if Arafat and Rabin reach an agreement, we will need a few days to change the text in order to fit in the agreement.”

The outstanding issues fall in three major areas:

* Security for the Jewish settlers whose communities will remain in Palestinian-administered territory. Israel wants to station troops around the Gaza settlements and to be able to patrol the roads throughout the two regions at will. The PLO agrees to soldiers inside settlements but opposes Israeli patrols on roads throughout the West Bank.

* The size of the Jericho District in the West Bank. The PLO wants 360 square kilometers; the Israelis are offering less than a tenth of that.

* Control of the Gaza Strip’s borders with Egypt and the Jericho District’s with Jordan. Israel insists on controlling who enters and leaves the two areas; the PLO rejects this as contradicting the concept of self-government.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who met with Arafat on Thursday, reiterated that his government would not bend on security issues but wants to reach an overall agreement.

“I told him that regarding security issues there is no chance of an Israeli compromise,” Peres said on Army Radio. “I believe, despite the difficulties, it is possible to overcome the existing differences of opinion, that there is no real alternative.”

Still, Israeli officials acknowledged that compromises are within reach on all the issues.

“Rabin cannot go back to Israelis and say, ‘I was wrong--this is a bad deal and the PLO is the wrong partner,’ ” a senior Israeli official said. “And I don’t think Arafat can do it either. They have yoked themselves together, and they must meet each other’s needs. Rabin’s is security, first of all.”

The importance of the security issue for both sides was underscored late Friday when Jewish settlers shot dead three Palestinians in the bloodiest in a series of revenge attacks, which now overshadow the agreement on Palestinian self-government.

Lt. Gen. Ehud Barak, the Israeli army chief of staff, was quoted as saying troops are now on a virtual war footing to combat opponents of the peace plan, both Palestinians and Jews, who have intensified violence in an apparent attempt to frustrate Israel’s withdrawal and thus undermine the whole peace accord.

“We are talking about a war,” Barak told the newspaper Yediot Aharonot of the mounting violence in Gaza and the West Bank, “and any force we need to put into position for this is justified.”

According to Israeli officials, Rabin is considering some “symbolic but substantial” moves, such as turning over the Gaza police headquarters to the new Palestinian police and closing of some army outposts in densely populated areas of Gaza, on Monday when the withdrawal is scheduled to begin. Under the original agreement, Israel would complete its withdrawal from Gaza and the Jericho District by April 13.

But the Israeli-PLO differences on the critical issues are serious, according to Israeli and PLO officials, and are unlikely to disappear in cosmetic solutions or gestures.

The Israeli and Palestinian negotiators had recessed their talks in Cairo on Thursday without reaching any accord on draft agreements presented by both sides, and Shaath said it would take “a miracle” to conclude an agreement before Monday.

But Shaath said in an interview Friday that PLO officials are still hoping that Sunday’s meeting between Rabin and Arafat might produce a breakthrough and lead to a signed agreement within a week.

“Of course, there is a chance for a breakthrough; otherwise they wouldn’t be bothering to meet,” Shaath said.

Palestinian sources said that in their draft agreement presented this week the Israelis “did not budge” on any of the central issues. They are still proposing only a 27-square-kilometer area of Jericho, for example, to be transferred to Palestinian control, compared to the 360-square-kilometer district demanded by the PLO.

PLO officials said they are not prepared to give significant ground on issues such as the size of Jericho. Without demonstrating that the Palestinians will be taking over substantial territory, Arafat will not be able to maintain support for the accord within the Palestinian ranks, they said.

PLO officials say they hope that the Israelis will realize they stand to lose as much as the Palestinians by delaying implementation of the accord.

“Violence is going to continue, and the Israelis can’t stand it like we can,” said Mohammed Subieh, a senior PLO official in Cairo. “I think Arafat will ask Rabin: What will he gain these two weeks if he waits? Two weeks more of violence? This delay is de facto now, but what will he win from this delay? What will he change? Something will come down from the sky?”

A senior Israeli official acknowledged that Rabin must press ahead, that the longer the delay in implementing the agreement the stronger the opposition to it grows.

“This meeting on Sunday is more than necessary--it’s crucial,” he said, summing up the mood of a strategy session that Rabin held in Tel Aviv on Friday.

Egypt’s semi-official Middle East News Agency said that negotiators did make progress on the issue of 9,500 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. The agency said that Israel would free about 3,000 Palestinians in the near future as a confidence-building gesture, even if the withdrawal does not begin Monday.

Parks reported from Jerusalem, Murphy from Cairo. Times staff writer Norman Kempster, in Tunis, also contributed to this report.