Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, September 5, 1993                   TAG: 9309050147
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Baltimore Sun
DATELINE: JERUSALEM                                LENGTH: Medium

PLO UNIT ENDORSES ISRAEL PACT

Arafat said in Tunis, Tunisia, that the executive committee of Fatah, the largest group in the PLO, had approved the plan for autonomy for the Gaza Strip and West Bank town of Jericho.

He indicated he will now take the plan to the full leadership of the PLO. It faces significant opposition from minority groups there, but the approval of Fatah and new support elsewhere in the world gave the plan added momentum Saturday:

In Amman, Jordan, King Hussein, who had initially greeted news of the secretly negotiated pact glumly, said now he gives it his "full support."

In Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, the Organization of the Islamic Conference announced its approval of the plan.

In Washington, the State Department was so optimistic it offered a tentative date - Sept. 13 - for a signing of the agreement in Washington.

Arafat, who for decades has been reviled in Israel as a terrorist, gave a first-ever interview to Israel television Saturday from Tunis. He said "the first steps of peace have begun."

"From our side, there is definitely no backing off," the PLO chairman told the Arabic news team for the Israeli station.

The plan would give many powers of self-government to the approximately 1 million Palestinians who live in Jericho and the Gaza Strip within six months. Elections would be scheduled within nine months, and talks would continue about control of the rest of the West Bank.

It would be accompanied by mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO, a historic reversal of 26 years of bitter and bloody confrontation.

It still must overcome several possible pitfalls. Neither Syria nor Lebanon, negotiating partners in Washington with Jordan and the Palestinians, have endorsed the Palestinian plan nor struck deals of their own with Israel.

Syria, which wants Israeli troops off the Syrian Golan Heights, has remained largely mum about the Palestinian agreement. Lebanon's Prime Minister, Rafiq al-Hariri, has remained publicly bitter about Israel's bombardment of southern Lebanon in July. He said Saturday the plan had "weakened the Palestinian cause."

The Arab negotiating allies had previously agreed not to reach a separate pact with Israel in order to maintain their collective leverage. But Arafat seems determined to go ahead and sign the agreement his representatives worked out in secret negotiations with the Israelis in Oslo, Norway.