In advance of Mideast summit, both sides try to garner support

JERUSALEM - Heading into a make-or-break U.S.-brokered Mideast summit, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat campaigned to build support among their own people Friday.

Barak's camp prepared to take to the streets for pro-peace demonstrations, while Arafat made a bid for national consensus by inviting 50 Palestinian leaders to accompany him to the talks.

As the Tuesday start of the summit hosted by President Clinton approaches, both leaders must contend with dwindling internal support - Barak from his increasingly fragile coalition, and Arafat from ordinary Palestinians frustrated by long-stalled peace efforts.

Despite threats from several of Barak's coalition partners to bolt over concerns that he might make too-great concessions to the Palestinians at the summit, the prime minister said he will not sway from his mandate for peace.

''We have the clear majority on the street,'' Barak said, invoking his overwhelming electoral victory over hard-line former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in May 1999. Barak insists he has the support of the people even though recent polls have showed his popularity slipping.

At the presidential retreat of Camp David in rural Maryland, Clinton hopes to forge a framework for a peace treaty. A final deal is due Sept. 13 but the sides appear to be entrenched in widely differing negotiating positions.

The Palestinians demand a state in all the West Bank and Gaza Strip with the Arab sector of Jerusalem as their capital, while Israel says it is willing to cede most of the West Bank but wants to keep the major Jewish settlement blocs under its control and refuses to forfeit sovereignty over any part of Jerusalem.

The Palestinians say - with qualifications - that they plan to declare independence on Sept. 13, unilaterally if necessary.

The Palestinian Cabinet on Friday reiterated its determination to ''establish an independent Palestinian state no matter how high the price or steep the sacrifice,'' a Cabinet statement said.

A meeting of the PLO Executive Committee later Friday evening applauded Arafat for deciding to bring a delegation of 50 including Palestinian leaders, lawyers, and technical staff to the summit.

Among the delegates will be representatives from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a political faction that in the past rejected peace efforts with Israel. Other factions from the so-called Palestinian rejectionist camp declined Arafat's invitation to accompany him to the summit.

While only 12 members of the delegation will be permitted on the grounds of Camp David, the others will be nearby for consultation, Palestinian officials said.

Adding to Barak's coalition woes, the ultra-Orthodox Shas party said Friday that unless the prime minister clarifies the parameters in which he plans to negotiate in the upcoming summit, it too would consider leaving the government.

Two other parties in Barak's ruling coalition, the immigrants party Israel B'Aliya and the National Religious Party have said they would leave his government ahead of the summit.

The potential departures of these parties could deprive Barak of the broad consensus he says he needs to make peace.