CLINTON TRIP STIRS MIDEAST TENSION.

Byline: Hugh Dellios Chicago Tribune 

Despite the 25,000 American flags specially ordered to greet him, President Clinton will not receive a universal welcome on the Palestinians' bleak Mediterranean seacoast Monday.

In the square downtown where tearful mothers protest Israel's release of criminals rather than the release of their political-prisoner sons, as in the West Bank streets that erupted in riots last week, not everyone is so eager to celebrate the arrival of the man Palestinian President Yasser Arafat is calling a new friend.

``If the Americans are together with the Israelis in releasing car thieves and criminals, then this is a joke,'' said Hisham Abdul Razek, the Palestinian minister of prisoner affairs, as he played chess in a tent with 61 other former prisoners on hunger strike in Gaza.

The historic trip of a U.S. president to Palestinian territory was intended to be a friendly visit to gently nudge along Middle East peace. Instead, it will unfold amid a crisis of Palestinian and Israeli protests over the recent Wye River accord, posing serious risks for Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, if not Arafat as well.

The visit has taken on all kinds of political symbolism, with Arafat playing it up as recognition of his fledgling Palestinian state and a stronger alliance with America. Netanyahu, facing his toughest challenge ever in the Israeli Knesset, is demanding that Clinton come only to lower Palestinian expectations.

Where Clinton wanted to celebrate Wye, both sides want him to re-mediate the accords. In the Middle East, that is a role fraught with danger for a president hoping to appear like a statesman to distract attention from his impeachment troubles back home and hoping to sightsee a little in Bethlehem before he departs.

A misstep could mean trouble in implementing the Wye agreement, and Palestinian youths returning to do what they more often do with American flags - burn them.

``It could be an embarrassment,'' said Barry Rubin, a political analyst at Israel's Bar-Ilan University. ``He wants to look like a peacemaker, but you don't come in without proper preparation by getting the two sides together. What if he doesn't?''

U.S. mediators struggled all week to close the gaps between the two sides prior to Clinton's arrival. A compromise was struck over Israeli concerns about the president flying into the new Gaza airport: He will land by helicopter rather than in Air Force One.

Tight security

The other American preoccupation is security in Gaza, which the radical Muslim Hamas movement calls home and where Clinton will address a gathering of Palestinian leaders that includes many people the United States once labeled terrorists. Some of those invited were denied entry permits by Israel, government officials said.

American military helicopters have been circling the skies for days over the Rashad Shawwa Cultural Center, where Clinton will speak. And teams of U.S. security personnel have met with Israeli and Palestinian police to coordinate protection of the president when he flies in and possibly motorcades through the city to have breakfast with Arafat.

Clinton arrives at a time when it will be very difficult for Netanyahu to embrace the Palestinians. A week after Clinton leaves, the prime minister faces a no-confidence vote in the Knesset with many right-wing supporters abandoning him because he signed the Wye accord and left-wing opponents retracting temporary support because he suspended the accord's implementation.

Netanyahu said last week he would not enact the second phase of Wye's land-for-security deal until the Palestinians halt what he calls violations of the accord. They include demanding that more political prisoners be released, allegedly inciting youths to riot over the issue and continuing to say they will declare an independent Palestinian state next May.

The Israelis also are demanding that when Clinton meets the hundreds-strong gathering of Palestinian leaders Monday, the group will take a formal vote to confirm that numerous anti-Israel clauses are deleted from the Palestinians' 1964 founding charter. Palestinians have promised only a ``reaffirmation'' of an earlier assurance by Arafat that the clauses were deleted two years ago.

Sensitive negotiations

While stressing they back neither side, U.S. officials have supported Netanyahu's interpretation of Wye, which holds that the Israelis may decide which prisoners are released. But they support the Palestinians on the charter question, noting that the accord does not call for a formal vote.

Last week, a majority of Netanyahu's own ministers expressed reservations about Clinton's visit and the boost it could give the Palestinians. That ignited a nationwide debate about the political wisdom of not rolling out the red carpet for the leader of a nation that gives Israel nearly $3 billion a year in aid, but Netanyahu stood firm.

``I hope President Clinton uses this visit to demand Palestinian compliance,'' he said. ``We will abide by the accord if they abide by the accord, and if they don't, no power on Earth will make us participate in a farce.''

Opportunity for Arafat

Arafat has the most to gain from Clinton's visit. Fresh from a trip to the United States, where he was treated like a head of state and showered with new aid, he is being praised in Gaza and the West Bank for capping what has been a decade-long mission to recruit the United States as an ally in the Palestinians' struggle for statehood.

``U.S. turned from mediator to partner,'' declared a headline last week in the Al Quds newspaper.

It is a major reversal for a man the United States shunned as a terrorist for 30 years. Clinton's visit to Gaza will occur 10 years to the day that Arafat recognized Israel's right to exist at a news conference in Geneva, leading to the first U.S.-Palestinian talks.

The Palestinians hope their acceptance by the United States gives them more leverage in exacting concessions from the Israelis. They want Clinton to mediate the prisoner issue this week, but their main mission is to be better placed for final peace negotiations, where the fate of jointly claimed Jerusalem, refugees and borders will be decided.

The U.S. and Israel

Israelis fear that the stronger relationship between the United States and Arafat will be mirrored by a weakening of U.S.-Israel ties, giving the Palestinians much more diplomatic influence. Netanyahu's critics blame him for letting relations deteriorate with Clinton.

On the streets of Jerusalem, police last week tore down posters of Clinton donning a black-and-white Arab keffiyeh like Arafat's. ``Clinton, go home!'' the posters read.

``When (Netanyahu) was negotiating at Wye, he did not dream how quickly and to what extent Clinton would support Arafat, or how this support would be translated into pressure on Israel to meet its commitments,'' Israeli journalist Yoel Marcus wrote in the newspaper Ha'aretz. ``Five hundred million Muslims will be watching on TV sets, justifiably interpreting (Clinton's visit) as a pat on the back for Palestinian aspirations for a state.''

On the dusty streets in Gaza, however, the sentiments are mixed over what Arafat has gained.

Gazans brim with pride over new roads, apartment buildings and satellite television dishes that have sprung up everywhere since peace was declared and international aid began flowing in. But jobs are still scarce, salaries low and families cramped together in the Jabaliya refugee camp where they have lived for 50 years.

For many Gazans, America is still the main financier and arms supplier of Israel, the enemy. And they compare the cramped, bleak lives of their 1.1 million people with the better-off Israeli settlers who still occupy some of the most fertile land in the Gaza Strip.

If Clinton's trip fails and Arafat cannot deliver more from the Wye agreement, he could lose more support to radical groups like Hamas, who defend terrorism and already speak for a fair number of Gazans.

``Maybe to the Americans it looks like the Palestinians' problems are being solved, but not to the Palestinians,'' Hamas leader Ismail Abu Shanab said last week. ``They want to tell Arafat, You are our partner, but he is caught in a trap and we don't expect he can get more than what is in his hands now.''

Shanab said the Hamas leadership in Gaza gave Arafat a pledge not to order a strike during the three-month implementation of the Wye accord. But he said they could not vouch for small, independent cells of the movement's military cadres, and Hamas leaders in Iran and elsewhere are suspected to have been behind recent terrorist attacks.