MIDEAST LEADERS ARRIVE IN U.S. : ISRAEL THOUGHT READY TO MAKE CONCESSIONS.

Byline: Steven Erlanger The New York Times

Middle Eastern leaders began to converge on Washington on Monday evening for an emergency meeting called by President Clinton, with indications that Israel was prepared to negotiate on some of the issues of greatest concern to the Palestinians, including the long-delayed Israeli withdrawal of troops from the Arab city of Hebron and the lifting of travel restrictions on Palestinians.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, were to meet separately today with Clinton, who might bring them together later. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak preferred to stay home, skeptical about Netanyahu's intentions and concerned about a meeting with no clear agenda.

King Hussein of Jordan will also take part in the discussions today and Wednesday designed to get the Israelis and Palestinians talking seriously again about how they might live together without bloodshed.

American officials, who say they expect ``no miracles,'' want to avoid further deterioration in the Middle East peace effort, stop a downward spiral of violence, and find a binding mechanism for the Israelis and Palestinians to continue their talks over the deep issues of territory and psychology that divide them.

``We want this meeting to get the two sides to renew their involvement and their commitments and not allow the violence to derail them,'' a senior American official said.

Netanyahu previously has said he would honor the former government's peace agreements, which include a withdrawal of troops from most of Hebron, a West Bank city where a small Jewish enclave lives among Arabs. He has also promised to ease travel restrictions on Palestinians. But these measures are unpopular with many of his conservative supporters, and he has found many reasons to delay them.

On Monday, he suggested holding immediate talks with the Palestinians on these issues, to last as long as it takes to solve them.

``I don't know what the result of the summit will be,'' said the State Department spokesman, Nicholas Burns, trying to lower expectations. ``None of us do.''

The meeting carries significant risks for Clinton in his re-election campaign. He has devoted much time and energy to the Middle East, and was criticized for throwing American support too openly to Netanyahu's rival in Israel's May election, former Prime Minister Shimon Peres. Failure here would boost the Republican presidential candidate, Bob Dole, who was supportive of the summit meeting Sunday but convened his foreign-policy advisers Monday to criticize the Clinton record on the Middle East.

In a statement, Dole said the United States must demand an ``unconditional end to the violence,'' but added: ``The government of Prime Minister Netanyahu deserves the full support of the United States at this moment of crisis.''

``Israel has taken great risks for peace, including allowing the arming of 30,000 Palestinian police, who have used their weapons to fire on Israelis,'' the Dole statement continued. ``Our friend Israel must not be asked to make concessions as a means of restoring order.''

Netanyahu told reporters on the plane to Washington that he would propose that the meeting here be followed by ``continuous negotiations'' to settle some of the main issues between the Israelis and Palestinians: the redeployment in Hebron and how security can be assured for the Israelis who live there; an easing of the sealing off of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which prevents most Palestinians from traveling between the territories or crossing into Israel to work; and other security questions, including an airport in the Gaza Strip that the Palestinians want to control.

Before the recent violence, Netanyahu had promised Clinton that he would redeploy Israeli troops from Hebron after the Jewish High Holy Days, according to a senior American official. The Americans want to hold him to that promise, understanding that it may require more guarantees from Arafat about the security of the settlers there. Even under the previous accord on Hebron, an Israeli garrison would remain to guard them.

On Monday, too, Netanyahu said he wanted firm assurances from Arafat to refrain from the use of violence to achieve diplomatic objectives. If such a pledge of nonviolence is broken, Netanyahu told reporters on his airplane to Washington, Israel would feel free to break its own pledges. And he repeated that the second entrance to a tunnel running alongside Al Aksa Mosque would stay open and not be a subject for negotiation.

Arafat, speaking in Luxembourg before heading to Washington, said, ``I am not asking for the moon, I am only asking for what had been agreed upon and what had been signed to be implemented accurately and honestly.''

Netanyahu's proposals were ``in general very positive,'' a senior American official said, suggesting that a commitment to follow-up talks between the two sides on carrying out promises already made under the Oslo accords would be concrete enough to ensure the success of the Washington meeting. The official said that a pledge on nonviolence was a reasonable idea, but he saw little way to make it binding.

The Americans also hope that the two sides will agree to a framework for negotiations on the harder issues of the so-called ``final status talks'' on the future status of Jerusalem. The tunnel entrance, opening into the Muslim quarter, was a volatile issue because it seemed to the Palestinians that the Israelis were intent on aggressively asserting sovereignty over all of Jerusalem without taking Arab concerns into consideration.

Clinton plans to bring Netanyahu and Arafat together briefly in the morning, officials say, before sending them off to nearby Blair House for further talks. Hussein and Mubarak's foreign minister, Amr Moussa, will be available to meet with any or all of the parties.

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PHOTO Israeli soldiers stand guard near the exit of the rec ently reopened tunnel in Jerusalem's Old Town.

Associated Press