Borderline Breakthrough

By MARGUERITE MICHAELS

For 2 1/2 days last week, exhausted negotiators pored over maps and drafts of a proposed agreement in smoke-filled Cairo hotel rooms, until the morning of the third day, when Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres proclaimed that the two sides had "reached a meeting of the minds." Breakthrough!

Not quite. In a predawn meeting at the Cairo airport, Palestine Liberation Organization negotiator Mahmoud Abbas had briefed P.L.O. Chairman Yasser Arafat on the details. Arafat had then flown to Tunis to convene a meeting of the organization's executive committee. That night Arafat flew back to Cairo for a crucial meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

No breakthrough. But neither had anything collapsed. "There is no crisis," insisted a senior Egyptian diplomat, "but there are complications."

Nearly three weeks past the scheduled date for the beginning of the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the occupied Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho, Israeli negotiators and representatives of the Palestinian people are clearly still at odds over the interpretation of the Declaration of Principles that was signed with such fanfare on the White House lawn last September. There has been progress, to be sure, and more significantly there remains among the participants a willingness to move from a meeting of the minds to the sealing of a deal. Just not yet.

The Cairo meetings last week were the third round of talks since the Dec. 13 deadline passed. A fourth round is planned for this week. At issue are three main points: the boundaries around Jericho, protection for Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip and control of the borders. Negotiators on both sides say that a compromise has been reached on the size of Jericho, with Israel agreeing to 23 sq. mi. of Palestinian-controlled territory surrounding the West Bank town -- less than the 80 sq. mi. the P.L.O. wanted but double Israel's original proposal. To protect Jewish settlers, Israel has reportedly agreed to security positions inside Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip. Protection of settlers outside the perimeters of the settlements would be shared by Israeli and Palestinian security forces.

The major unresolved issue is border control. Israel regards retention of control as critical to its security; the P.L.O. sees the presence of Palestinian policemen at border crossings as symbolic of the sovereignty they seek in Gaza and the West Bank. Under the occupation, crossing into the West Bank or Gaza Strip into Israel can be a humiliating experience for Palestinians, who are often subjected to interrogations and body searches by Israeli soldiers. The Israelis feel Palestinian control over the crossings would risk making the borders porous to exiles, terrorists and weapons.

Underlying the difficulty in resolving this issue is the more daunting disagreement between Israel and the P.L.O.: what Israel sees as limited self- rule for the Palestinians in some of the occupied areas, the P.L.O. sees as a step toward its goal of a Palestinian state. Negotiators recognize that some form of shared responsibility for security on the borders will have to be reached to preserve Arafat's credibility as leader of the P.L.O. While Rabin's government has thus far fended off no-confidence motions in the Knesset sponsored by the right-wing opposition, Arafat has been shaken by a recent spate of resignations from his own Fatah movement. According to Ghassan Khatib, a West Bank-based official with the People's Party, a constituent party of the P.L.O., the continuing delay in implementing the agreement has only further weakened Palestinian confidence in Arafat. Popular support for the Declaration of Principles ran at 65% in the territories just after the September signing; last week it was down to 40%.

Egyptian officials, who are playing an increasingly prominent role as mediators, are trying to persuade Arafat to accept Israel's offer. Mubarak, facing his own troubles with Muslim fundamentalist terrorists, is known to fear a surge in Palestinian support for the extremist Hamas movement in the occupied territories if the P.L.O. fails to reach agreement with Israel. President Clinton's mid-January summit with Syrian President Hafez Assad in Geneva is sure to bring renewed pressure on Arafat as well. Optimists assume that, in the end, the Israelis and the P.L.O. will agree on a formula that allows Palestinian self-rule to proceed, if only because the alternative -- increased violence -- is unacceptable.

Pessimists are worried that Israel may come to see as pointless further concessions to an organization that is increasingly fractious. Arafat's task, as usual, will be to prove the pessimists wrong.

With reporting by Lisa Beyer/Jerusalem and Dean Fischer/Cairo