PLO Assails Jordan Over Jerusalem : Controversy: Arafat and other leaders charge that the pact with Israel freezes them out of the city they consider their capital.

Even as Jordan celebrated its rapprochement with Israel, it found itself in a quarrel Tuesday with the Palestine Liberation Organization over guardianship of Islamic shrines in this city.

PLO leaders, seeing an Israeli maneuver to undercut the Palestinian claim to East Jerusalem as the future capital of an independent state, objected strongly to Israel’s promise to give Jordan “high priority” in talks on Jerusalem’s status because of its “historic role” here.

In the background is Israel’s hope of establishing an interfaith authority to administer Jerusalem’s holy places--Christian, Islamic and Jewish--and allow it to retain full control over the city, which it calls “the eternal and undivided capital of the Jewish people.”

Under the agreement signed with the PLO in September, Israel committed itself to negotiate Jerusalem’s status as part of the final settlement of the Palestinian issue. Those talks are due to start in less than two years, and Israel has been seeking religious and diplomatic support for an interfaith authority.

The ease and speed with which Israel and Jordan drew up their Washington declaration aroused suspicions among Palestinians that Israel was pursuing the “Jordanian option”--seeking peace with King Hussein in the hope that it could avoid some of the difficult compromises that would be required when negotiating with the Palestinians.

And there was simply shock that Hussein would, apparently, go along with Israel, implicitly accepting its plan for Jerusalem’s future in return for a role as custodian of Muslim holy places here.

Rebuking Hussein, the East Jerusalem newspaper Al Quds said in an editorial, “It is worthwhile remembering that the issue of Arab Jerusalem is not merely an issue of religious ceremonies or holy places only, but a political and geographic one as well.”

Although PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat congratulated Hussein and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin when they signed the Washington declaration Monday, a spokesman said Tuesday that the agreement was “made at the expense of the Palestinians and intended to weaken the Palestinian position” on Jerusalem.

In a statement issued by the Palestinian news agency WAFA in Gaza City, the PLO said: “The Israeli government has no right to give any role or commitment on Jerusalem since it is an occupying state. . . . This (agreement) predetermines the fate of Jerusalem . . . and ignores Jerusalem as a political, Palestinian, Arab, Christian and Islamic issue and ignores the fact that it is an occupied city.”

Rabin boasted to Israeli journalists in Washington that he had worded the paragraph on Jerusalem personally with the intention of establishing a distinction between political Jerusalem and religious Jerusalem. “There’s now a separation between the political-diplomatic problem and the religious problem concerning the places holy to Muslims,” he declared, saying he is ready to talk with other Muslim leaders about the Islamic shrines.

Faisal Husseini, the Palestinian Authority official responsible for the Jerusalem issue, warned Jordan that, regardless of agreements reached with Israel, it will have to deal with Palestinians on Jerusalem and the role that Hussein as a descendant of the Prophet Mohammed wishes to retain.

“The final status is a Palestinian issue--it concerns Palestinians,” Husseini said. “As for interim solutions, we support Islamic participation, but the final status (of Jerusalem) cannot be solved without us.”

Other Palestinian leaders also criticized Jordan for allowing itself to be drawn into such a controversy.

“Any contradiction between Palestinians and Jordanians will play into the hands of the Israelis, and the Israelis will profit from it,” said Ziad abu Zayyad, a member of the Palestinian team negotiating with Israel. “This issue has to be worked out between the Palestinian leadership and Jordan.”

Saeb Erekat, municipal affairs minister in the Palestinian Authority, said Jordan accepted Israel too early and denied the Arabs leverage toward achieving a Palestinian state. “Israel is trying to jump and reach the fruits of peace without meeting the requirements (of) . . . withdrawal from all the occupied Arab territories, including East Jerusalem,” Erekat said.