Acceptance of U.S. proposal likely to invite opposition

CAIRO, Egypt - Even qualified acceptance of a controversial U.S. peace proposal is likely to invite fierce opposition in the Arab world, where governments, Palestinian refugees and ordinary Arabs are lining up along with some of the region's most militant voices against Washington's ideas.

Yasser Arafat has reservations about the plan, but an aide said Wednesday he told President Clinton during a meeting in Washington he was willing to accept it in order to restart negotiations with the Israelis.

Even before the announcement, critics had accused Arafat of caving in to the Israelis.

Arafat's Palestinian Authority "has abandoned even the minimum demands of the Palestinian people," Ahmed Jibril, chief of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, told The Associated Press this week.

Jibril called for more violence. A Palestinian uprising and Israeli retaliation have already killed more than 350 people - most of them Palestinians - over the last three months in Israel and the Palestinian areas.

A key concession in the U.S. proposals would require Arafat to renounce the "right of return" to Israel of some 4 million Palestinian refugees scattered in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and elsewhere. In exchange, the Palestinians would gain control of a Jerusalem site holy to both Muslims and Jews.

Several Palestinian officials, speaking on condition they not be identified, said Arafat also agreed to 12 days of intensive negotiations with Israel.