Those Who Began Talks Reject Emerging Israel-PLO Pact : Mideast: A Palestinian ex-negotiator says the accord falls short. Likud leader Netanyahu, also an early delegate, criticizes it for going too far.

As Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization conclude terms for Palestinian self-rule, leaders who began the negotiations 2 1/2 years ago rejected the emerging accord Monday as far from the original goals and likely to bring further conflict rather than peace.

Dr. Haidar Abdel-Shafi, who led the Palestinian delegation to the first peace talks with Israel, said Palestinians will regard the autonomy agreement as without legitimacy because it fails to check expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip; secure Israel’s withdrawal from the areas, and ensure Palestinian self-determination.

“The signing of such agreements will not prevent the continued struggle of our people against the illegal actions of the Israeli occupier,” he declared in a statement also signed by more than 20 other leading Palestinian political figures from Gaza and the West Bank.

An equally stern warning came on the Israeli side from Benjamin Netanyahu, now chairman of the opposition Likud Party but a ranking member of then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s delegation to the Madrid peace conference in October, 1991.

“This agreement will bring greater insecurity, greater terrorism and eventually the resumption of open conflict,” Netanyahu said, arguing that Israel has given so much away in negotiations that its security now depends on “little more than promises from (PLO Chairman) Yasser Arafat.”

The double-barreled warnings were a reminder of the serious doubts that have arisen among Israelis and Palestinians about the character of the autonomy agreement and the nature of Palestinian self-government.

“The public mood says that something has gone wrong with this,” Netanyahu said. “There has been a sea change in public opinion. . . . Even in the government there are second thoughts.”

Arafat should understand, Abdel-Shafi said, that “with each concession, each compromise, he cuts away what support he still has for this agreement . . . and really he is cutting away support now for the whole peace process.”

According to opinion polls of both Israelis and Palestinians, the length of the negotiations--they have been under way since October--and the failure to follow the agreed-upon timetable have greatly undermined popular support.

But even more damage was done by terrorist attacks, notably the massacre by a Jewish settler of about 30 Palestinians in a West Bank mosque two months ago and the assaults--including two recent, murderous car bombings--by Islamic militants on Israelis.

Ghassan Khatib, a professor at Birzeit University and another veteran Palestinian negotiator, said the proposed agreement goes too far in legitimizing Israel’s long occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, particularly Jewish settlements there; it also falls short of Palestinian desires for self-determination, he said.

“This will not be a gain but a setback for us and for peace,” Khatib warned. “This agreement lacks legitimacy, it will be rejected by the people, and it thus will fail. We can already see the resulting conflict.”

But Khatib and Netanyahu disagree profoundly on the way forward. Khatib, a leader of the pro-Communist Palestine People’s Party, wants the West Bank and Gaza Strip firmly on the road to Palestinian statehood. Netanyahu sees such statehood as an even greater threat to Israel and instead wants the Palestinians to accept self-rule under Israeli sovereignty.

Meantime, in London, the United States announced Monday that it will back a request from Jordan’s King Hussein to end the naval blockade around the Jordanian port of Aqaba and replace it with land-based inspections to prevent goods from passing through Jordan to Iraq in violation of U.N. sanctions.

After talks with the king, Secretary of State Warren Christopher said the shift will accommodate Jordanian economic concerns but “will also make it easier to sustain and enhance the sanctions against Iraq.”

Before the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Jordan had served as a primary conduit of goods--from war materiel to basic foods--for Iraq. The blockade on Aqaba was put in place largely because goods continued to be smuggled, principally by falsified papers, through the kingdom after U.N. sanctions were imposed. All ships sailing through the Gulf of Aqaba for Jordan have been inspected by ships of the U.S.-led coalition.