Israel, PLO Reach Tentative Pact on Palestinian Self-Rule : Mideast: Peres hurries to California to brief Christopher. Broad plan includes Gaza pullout and autonomy for the West Bank. But both sides anticipate a struggle over the details.

JERUSALEM —  Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization have reached tentative agreement in secret negotiations on the broad outline for an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and for Palestinian self-government on the West Bank, well-informed Israeli, Palestinian and U.S. officials said Saturday.

The agreement will give Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho virtual independence, according to these sources; Palestinians elsewhere on the West Bank will gain control over their daily lives through an elected government while the territories’ final status is negotiated.

Reached by Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and a senior PLO official at a secret meeting last week in Oslo, the Norwegian capital, the accord effectively lays the foundation for a Palestinian state and thus could break the long stalemate in the Middle East peace talks.

Peres, continuing his secret diplomacy with a 20-hour flight to the United States, briefed Secretary of State Warren Christopher on the agreement for four hours Friday night at a hastily arranged meeting at the Point Mugu Naval Air Station at Oxnard, Calif.; Christopher is vacationing in Santa Barbara.

Under a scenario worked out between Israel and the PLO, Palestinian delegates to the Middle East peace talks will propose the “Gaza-Jericho first” plan, as it has been dubbed, when the negotiations resume Tuesday in Washington, sources here said. Israel will then “respond positively” with counterproposals so any agreement is concluded within the framework of the formal talks.

Mike McCurry, a State Department spokesman, declined to go into the details of Peres’ discussion with Christopher but said in Washington on Saturday, “It makes clear that parties in the region are focusing on choices and planning that could make real progress in these negotiations possible.”

Peres is believed to have been seeking Clinton Administration support for the plan, including diplomatic backing in the talks, economic assistance for the Palestinians and further security guarantees for Israel.

But Peres was also hoping to mollify a U.S. Administration angered by Israel’s dealing with the PLO, with which the United States does not have direct contacts, and by its negotiations outside the Washington talks, according to senior Israeli officials. Saturday evening, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin discussed the plan further with Christopher by telephone.

The key question now, according to those familiar with the negotiations, is how Israeli and Palestinian leaders will win strong and early support for the agreement with all the compromises and concessions that it entails from both sides.

Peres, who immediately returned to Israel on another long flight, is expected to brief the Israeli Cabinet today, and Rabin is then likely to present the accord to the country before a debate, demanded by the opposition Likud Party and certain to be contentious, in Parliament on Monday.

“People will be in the streets,” a senior Israeli official predicted. “This is not just the beginning of the real negotiations but of our withdrawal from the occupied territories. . . . There will be a big, big fight.”

Rabin’s position will be complicated, according to sources here, because only the broad framework was agreed to--and its critics will demand detail. “There are still a lot of loose ends, and Likud will try to tear it apart that way,” another official said.

The plan brings into the open months of secret diplomacy by Israel and the PLO, leading to a series of clandestine meetings in the past three months between Israeli Cabinet members and senior PLO officials. Even Saturday, only a handful of senior Israeli officials, the closest aides of Rabin and Peres, were fully in the picture.

Rabin and Peres, old rivals who have often appeared to be pulling in different directions over the past year, were described as tightly coordinating each move in a closely linked chain of public and secret diplomacy.

“They have been sitting together at night, just the two of them, discussing everything and deciding what to do next,” a senior Israeli official said. “The picture of them sitting late, later into the night and talking is a quiet drama in itself.”

The PLO leadership, emerging from a crucial two-day meeting at which Chairman Yasser Arafat won over critics of the “Gaza-Jericho first” proposal, began informing its supporters in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem of the agreement’s main elements on Saturday.

“This is more than a breakthrough--it’s historic,” Dr. Ahmed Tibi, an East Jerusalem physician with close PLO ties, said after speaking with Arafat in Tunis, Tunisia. “Very difficult compromises are being made by both sides in order to resolve the Palestinian problem and bring peace to the Middle East.”

Palestinian representatives outlined the plan to Syrian, Lebanese, Jordanian and Egyptian foreign ministers at a meeting Saturday in Beirut; Syria and Jordan complained last week that the Palestinians were not keeping them fully informed.

When challenged about the compromises the plan entails, Saeb Erekat, the deputy chief Palestinian delegate to the peace talks, reportedly retorted, “Give me a better solution, and we’ll accept it.”

Israeli and Palestinian officials, as well as diplomats, cautioned Saturday that only the broad framework had been agreed to of what will eventually be a highly complex accord and that many details, ranging from the precise borders of the territories involved to timetables for the Israeli withdrawals, could prove difficult.

“This is still quite a general formula, and details have not yet been finalized,” Dr. Ephraim Sneh, vice chairman of Israel’s parliamentary defense and foreign affairs committee and a Rabin confidant, commented.

Although the full agreement has not yet been released, among the major elements confirmed Saturday by Israeli, Palestinian and U.S. officials:

* Israeli withdrawal simultaneously from the Gaza Strip and Jericho.

* A Palestinian pledge not to declare an independent or sovereign state in the areas vacated by Israel at this stage.

* PLO participation in control of the vacated areas as Israel withdraws.

* Election of a Palestinian government to administer both the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Residents of Arab East Jerusalem would be able to vote and run for office in the election.

* Israeli settlements on the West Bank would remain under Israeli jurisdiction for an interim period; eventually, Israeli settlers would be given a choice of remaining in their communities under a Palestinian government or being repatriated.

* Negotiations on the “final status” of all the territories would begin in two years, not three as originally envisioned. The future of Jerusalem--likely to be the most difficult issue in the talks--will be postponed until then.

* A joint declaration affirming that the Gaza-Jericho phase is an initial stage in fulfilling U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which envisions a return of occupied Arab territory in a peace agreement ensuring Israeli security.

Peres said in interviews before leaving for California that Israel would pull its troops out of the Gaza Strip and Jericho under a “Gaza-Jericho” plan but would retain overall responsibility for security in both places.

The Gaza Strip has a population of more than 800,000 Palestinians, Jericho about 37,000 and the rest of the West Bank, including Arab East Jerusalem, nearly 1.2 million. There are about 5,000 Israeli settlers in the Gaza Strip, and fewer than that around Jericho.

Palestinians are being told by the PLO that “Gaza-Jericho” will constitute a test of their ability to govern themselves without threatening Israeli security; if this phase goes well, the West Bank will be included, and Palestinian independence will be assured.

But Arafat, the original proponent of “Gaza-Jericho,” encountered a storm of criticism within the PLO that he was giving up too much.

Peres’ counterpart in the Oslo meeting has not been identified, but Palestinians say he was a political confidant of Arafat.

Nabil Shaath, Arafat’s senior political adviser, said that the deal struck with Peres won the debate for the PLO chairman. “We have resolved the issue among ourselves, largely because of the breakthrough with Peres,” Shaath said from Tunis. “Our problems (in the PLO) are not over, far from it, but we have support for this.”

In Israel, however, Rabin will face a tough fight from Likud, which is already demanding new elections or a referendum on the proposal. On Monday, Likud is likely to propose a vote of no confidence in the government in the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, over the issue. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Likud leader, cut short a trip to the United States to return for the debate.

Parks reported from Jerusalem and Pine from Washington.