Palestinians Already Working to Smooth West Bank Transition : Mideast: PLO hopes planning will make adjustment to new rule easier than it was in Gaza.

Undeterred by all the stops and starts in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on the future of the West Bank, Qaddoura Moussa is quietly preparing for the end of Israel’s 28-year occupation here.

Israel’s long-anticipated withdrawal from West Bank towns is expected to begin in Janin, possibly as early as September, once an agreement is signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization on expanding Palestinian self-rule.

In a shabby office decorated with icons of the Palestinian revolution, Moussa said that he is determined to ensure that the transition from Israeli military rule to Palestinian self-government will be smooth.

“We are asking people to prepare themselves so that we do not have the same mistakes that we had in Gaza and in Jericho,” said Moussa, recalling the shaky establishment of the Palestinian Authority last year in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho.

“This town will prepare for the sulta’s arrival as though it is preparing for a Palestinian wedding,” Moussa said, using the Arabic term for the year-old authority.

What Moussa does not say is that much is at stake in Janin and elsewhere on the West Bank for PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat as the Palestinian Authority extends its rule: Within three months of an agreement, the first elections will be held for the self-governing authority, and Fatah, the largest group within the PLO, will be judged on its record.

A longtime activist in Fatah, Moussa was sent to Janin, a town of 35,000 at the northern end of the West Bank, as Arafat’s personal envoy to ensure a quick, problem-free transition from Israeli to Palestinian administration.

“Our territory is 1 million square dunams [about 390 square miles], with 220,000 people distributed in 64 villages and towns and two refugee camps,” Moussa said, looking forward to the era of self-rule. “We will deploy our forces throughout this area.”

People stream in and out of his office, seeking intervention on issues ranging from work permits that must be secured from Israeli authorities to jobs they want with the Palestinian self-governing authority.

Sitting beneath walls covered with photographs of Arafat, two dead PLO military leaders and the Palestinian flag, Moussa cheerfully fields telephone calls, signs documents and keeps up a steady stream of conversation.

On Janin’s dusty, garbage-choked streets, however, it is hard to envision the shift in administration, let alone to imagine the festive, wedding atmosphere Moussa expects.

Only the Israelis are taking steps to prepare for the turnover. The army is building a north-south bypass road around the town so Jewish settlers can avoid its streets once troops pull out. The army also confiscated several acres of Palestinian farmland outside town to build the offices of the Israeli-Palestinian regional liaison committee.

And Janin’s prison is now all but empty--the prisoners have been either released or transferred to more central prisons.

But in downtown Janin, Israeli troops still patrol, and young Palestinian men, sitting idly in front of empty shops, watch them resentfully.

“Historically, every occupation makes its presence felt until the last day,” said Ziad Habilreeh, a member of the Fatah Higher Committee for the West Bank and the PLO’s security chief in Janin.

Habilreeh agreed that Janin is listless and that cynicism has grown as negotiations on self-rule dragged on for months and deadlines were repeatedly set and broken. “People are no longer that interested in the peace process,” he said.

Although the Palestinian security service for which Habilreeh works is officially restricted to Gaza and Jericho, where the Palestinian Authority has governed for a year, it opened an office here three weeks ago with the tacit agreement of Israeli authorities.

“We are training cadres on all levels of security,” Habilreeh said. “The Israelis see us as a stabilizing factor in the community.”

Under pressure from Israel to ensure security after its troops pull back, the Palestinians are concentrating most of their efforts on recruiting, training and housing the 2,000 to 3,000 security force members they will deploy in the area.

But Moussa insisted that the efforts to prepare for the hand-over of authority go beyond mere security logistics. “We are holding a series of meetings with local institutions and individuals, preparing for the coming of the sulta both socially and psychologically,” he said.

Waving a sheaf of documents, Moussa explained that they were instruction sheets for “political awareness sessions” he initiated in July after taking up his duties.

When Palestinian self-rule began in Gaza and Jericho in May, 1994, thousands of police returned from decades in exile but found no preparations had been made to house or feed them.

The result was friction between the local population and the “outsiders,” as those who returned from exile came to be called. The PLO was criticized harshly by Gaza residents for flooding the region with thousands of these “outsiders” who often offended local sensibilities.

“Our forces came to Gaza and Jericho without preparations,” Moussa said. “They came only with Israeli instructions, not Palestinian instructions. The way they entered was very uncomfortable for the people and the forces. But now that we are inside, we are close to each other.”

Moussa has organized discussions among local leaders with some security officers and members of the self-governing authority on ways to avoid tension between the two sides.

“The cadres from inside gave lectures to the forces from outside on appropriate conduct, and they discussed how a person is transported from a revolutionary period to a civilian period,” Moussa said. Police and intelligence officers are being instructed, for example, on how to speak to people when they stop them at roadblocks or question them on the street.

Moussa insisted that the people of the West Bank, who generally are better educated and more affluent than the Gazans, are better prepared to accept the Palestinian self-governing authority than were the Gazans.

“The West Bankers have been exposed to different civilizations,” he said. “They are more able to cope with a new authority coming in. They are more open-minded. People in Gaza had nothing to offer the sulta. But the people here are going to be the teachers of the sulta .”