Gaza, Jericho Become Centers of New Palestinian Homeland : Mideast: Last-minute dispute over maps briefly delays signing by Israel and PLO of historic pact on self-rule. Rabin voices misgivings about Arabs’ readiness to govern areas.

The palm-shaded town of Jericho and the broiling slums of the Gaza Strip became the centers of a new Palestinian homeland Wednesday as Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, bickering to the last moment, signed an unprecedented pact on Palestinian self-rule.

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin expressed fears that the PLO is not ready to assume the government of its turbulent people over the next three weeks. But he still signed with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat the final autonomy accord, which for the first time in the modern era puts Palestinians in control of territories in the historic land of Palestine.

As hundreds of Palestinian prisoners were released from Israeli jails and the first Palestinian police crossed the border from Egypt into Gaza, Israel and the PLO ended almost seven months of often painful negotiations with a last-minute dispute over maps.

That disagreement left Rabin and Arafat fuming in frustration on stage as the signing drama unfolded in front of an audience of 2,500 dignitaries and of television viewers around the world.

“We are trying to create peaceful coexistence between two entities where there is no love lost between them, and I put it mildly,” Rabin explained of the dispute that came as one of the world’s most enduring conflicts was about to move a major step closer to resolution.

But both Rabin and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres were adamant that Israel is determined to make peace work.

Peres, as he stepped to the podium, looked over at the PLO chairman, clad in khaki military dress, and grinned, “Chairman Arafat, our partner in a very difficult journey: We did it!

“For almost half a century, we experienced blood and hatred, terror and war,” Peres said. “Today, we declare that the conflict is over. We don’t want to be the generals, the judges or the police of the Palestinian people. . . . Today, we welcome you, the Palestinian people, as neighbors.”

Arafat, whose irritation over the map reflected months of frustration at trying to turn the Declaration of Principles signed last September into a meaningful statement of Palestinian independence, stood subdued for much of the ceremony. He kept his hands clasped behind his back, stared straight ahead and tapped his left foot.

“If this step needs great courage to complete it after long decades of war and violence, then the coming steps will need even greater courage and deep vision,” Arafat said. “Our peoples have struggled for a very, very long time to witness this day. . . . We must all realize that all those who are lovers of peace must consider the seriousness of this step to see that it is carefully executed and implemented.”

Wednesday’s signing touches off a rapid series of events in the occupied territories, as Israel prepares to make its first troop withdrawal from Palestinian lands it has occupied since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

A total of 6,000 new Palestinian police are to arrive in Gaza and Jericho over the next week to two weeks, and the hundreds of prisoners released from Israeli jails Wednesday are the first of 5,000 scheduled to be freed during the next two weeks.

The PLO will appoint a 24-member Palestinian Authority to take over within the next three weeks, to be replaced later in the year by an elected council that eventually will govern all over the West Bank.

Talks on the final status of the territories, including the issue of Palestinian statehood and the future of Jerusalem, will not begin for three years.

Arafat’s remarks Wednesday reflected PLO concerns that the new autonomy in Gaza and Jericho, a dramatic gamble that risks alienating millions of Palestinians, must represent a meaningful enough step to relieve years of pent-up frustration.

The PLO chairman seethed over Israel’s reluctance to grant a significant block of territory for Palestinian control in Jericho. In the end, the Israelis conceded 25 square miles--half what Arafat had pleaded for at the last minute, though the issue remains subject to further discussions.

The Israelis also declined to grant symbolic concessions, such as Palestinian police on the international borders and the designation of Arafat as rais, an Arabic word that could be defined as president.

The PLO sees all these stands as shortsighted and counterproductive to its attempts to lure support amid what has been an ambivalent or even hostile public.

For his part, Rabin expressed fears that the two sides spent so much time negotiating the agreement that not enough attention was paid on the Palestinian side to preparing for a transition from Israeli military rule to Palestinian autonomy.

His remarks were a clear indication that Israel does not expect the transition in the next few weeks to go smoothly.

As an example, Rabin said Israel on Wednesday paid salaries to 24,000 employees in Gaza, about 6,000 of them permanent employees of the civil administration. “Tomorrow we will leave. Who will pay these 24,000 people? We can leave in two weeks, but (who will) . . . handle all these problems?” Rabin asked at a news conference after the signing ceremony.

Rabin also raised fears that most of the 9,000-member police force and additional civilian cadres returning to administer Gaza and Jericho have not been in the West Bank and Gaza for some time, in many cases since Israel’s occupation of the region in 1967.

“How long will it take them to acquaint themselves with the situation there?” he fretted. “There are practical problems that, unfortunately, focus was not given enough for proper preparation in the handing over . . . (and) we have now unfortunately to waste time.”

He said Arafat, apparently heeding the same concerns, hinted early Tuesday that he might favor drawing out the coming transition period. While Rabin said Israeli forces can be out in two to three weeks, or even days, Arafat seemed to be suggesting a four-week withdrawal, he said.

In Israel, where Jewish settlers seized the synagogue at Jericho and dozens more gathered for prayers and psalm readings, the opposition to the Rabin-Peres peace overtures in Cairo was already building.

“This is a black day for the state of Israel, and one of the most difficult days in the history of Zionism,” said Likud opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu. “Rabin will be able to say, ‘In Cairo, I established the Palestinian state, the Palestinian terrorist state.’ ”

Zvi Hendel, a Jewish settler in Neve Dekelim, told Army Radio: “We are continuing to build, to live, to take in new residents, and with the help of God are waiting for better days when there will be a new government.”

Syria--which, like Lebanon, did not send a foreign minister to Wednesday’s glittering signing ceremony--vowed that it will never sign a separate peace with Israel.

“Such separate and partial solutions would put obstacles in the way of the achievement of a just and comprehensive peace that should be based on U.N. resolutions and the principle of land for peace,” the official Syrian daily Al Thawra said.

Radical Palestinian factions in Lebanese refugee camps, who have little to gain from autonomy in Gaza and Jericho, demonstrated against the agreement, burning tires, calling for strikes and hailing posters that said “To Hell With the Shameful Cairo Agreement.”

Wednesday’s signing ceremony--held in the presence of such dignitaries as Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Russian Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev, Japanese Foreign Minister Koji Kakizawa and their counterparts from nations around the globe--was hosted by Egypt on the occasion of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s 66th birthday.

Conducted at a conference center only a few hundred yards from the reviewing stand where Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was assassinated after he made his daring, single-handed peace with Israel, the PLO-Israeli ceremony to a great degree culminated Egypt’s attempts to square its peacemaking with its Arab neighbors.

Isolated and rejected by Arabs for years because of the 1979 Camp David accords, Egyptian diplomats have worked feverishly to help broker the PLO accord. Mubarak beamed as he declared, “A historical move toward peace in the land of peace has started.”

The signing took place against a stage backdrop of the Sphinx, a pyramid and twinkling stars; Christopher, Kozyrev and Mubarak all signed as witnesses.

“We live in an age of political wonder, where old hatreds are giving way to new hopes,” Christopher declared. “With leadership, vision and courage, peace between old enemies is possible. . . . We’re here today because unspeakable acts of violence could not still the voices of peace, or weaken the resolve of the peacemakers.”

Among the audience of international political leaders, intellectuals and artists were delegations from Jewish American and Arab American groups and other political organizations.

“It borders on the unbelievable. You have to pinch yourself that these dramatic events are happening. It’s an incredible tribute to the tenacity of the parties to commit to make peace despite the obstacles in the way of Rabin and Arafat,” said former Westside congressman Mel Levine, co-chair of Builders for Peace, a group of American Jews and Arabs working to promote deals that will facilitate a better life in the territories with the onset of peace.

Stanley Sheinbaum, former president of the Los Angeles Police Commission and one of five American Jews who broke the ice on the peace process in 1988 by visiting Arafat, observed of Wednesday’s accord: “It means that the idea of peace is increasingly acceptable and realistic and that major change among the mainstream political groups is possible.

“Not all groups have come around,” he added. “But this helps show that having direct contact is the best way to go to find peace.”

Times staff writers Robin Wright in Cairo and Michael Parks in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

The Contract for Freedom

Palestinians in two areas of the territories Israel occupied in 1967--Jericho, in the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip--are about to experience their first freedom after 27 years of occupation.

KEY POINTS IN THE PACT

* What the Palestinians get: Responsibility for a broad range of their own affairs, ranging from health services and police to zoning, tourism, air service, fishing and finances.

* What Israel gets: Overall security responsibility in the occupied territories and control of international borders.

* A new government: A new appointed Palestinian Authority headed by PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat will become the effective government in Gaza and Jericho, with its authority expanded throughout the West Bank later this year.

* Palestinian police: The autonomous territories will be policed by 9,000 Palestinian police officers, rather than Israeli troops. About 7,000 will be drawn from PLO troops throughout the Middle East and the rest from the West Bank and Gaza.

* Troop withdrawal: Israeli troops will immediately begin withdrawing from Gaza and Jericho, with withdrawal to be completed within three weeks.

* Israeli military options: Israeli retains the right to move troops into Gaza and Jericho in the event of an outbreak of general hostilities or threats to the safety of Israeli settlements. Israeli troops will remain around Jewish settlements in Gaza as well as at military installation area nearby.

* Jewish settlements: Jewish settlements will remain in place, though they may be consolidated to provide better security.

WHAT PALESTINIANS FAILED TO GET

* More room: Jericho will remain only a little larger than the existing city limits, much smaller than the 93-square-mile enclave the PLO had envisioned. But the boundaries are subject to further discussion.

* Own currency: There will be no Palestinian currency, though talks on that issue are continuing.

* Economic independence: The Palestinian economy will remain to a very large degree dependent on Israel. Palestinians will regulate banks and set taxes on imports and income, but Israel retains customs quotas on a broad range of goods to protect against a flood of cheap Palestinian goods, including gasoline.

TIMETABLE

1) Israeli troops are to begin an immediate withdrawal from Jericho and the Gaza Strip.

2) The first Palestinian police officers begin arriving, with 6,000 to be deployed in the first two weeks.

3) The new governing Palestinian Authority will be appointed and take power in Gaza and Jericho within three weeks.

4) Elections to appoint a governing council throughout the West Bank are tentatively scheduled for Oct. 10.

Source: Times Jerusalem Bureau