Palestinian Leaders

JERUSALEM - In dual political crises yesterday, the coalition government of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon began to totter because of a budget dispute, and the Palestinian political establishment was faced with a serious new challenge when a jailed, well-known figure unexpectedly declared his candidacy for president of the Palestinian Authority. The decision by Marwan Barghouti, a charismatic Palestinian leader imprisoned in Israel, to seek the office greatly complicates the prospects for Mahmoud Abbas, who was chosen by the dominant Fatah political faction as its candidate in the Jan. 9 vote to elect a successor to the late Yasser Arafat.

CAIRO, Egypt - Mahmoud Abbas, the leading candidate for the presidency of the Palestinian Authority, said yesterday that Palestinians want to begin negotiating terms of final statehood with Israel as soon as possible and hope to reach an accord by the end of next year. Abbas, who is considered a moderate, told reporters after meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo that Palestinians would not accept a temporary solution. "Even a state with interim borders is a waste of time," he said.

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Israeli officials said yesterday that they were considering withdrawing troops and dismantling checkpoints in some West Bank cities before Palestinian elections in January to choose a new president. A partial withdrawal would meet a key Palestinian demand and also be welcomed by U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who is scheduled to meet today with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in separate sessions. Those meetings signal the first high-level American involvement since June last year.

JERUSALEM - The Palestinian officials trying to prepare for a smooth transfer of power before Yasser Arafat dies are having to make sense of a tangle of institutions created by and for Arafat and that may be unmanageable without him. Arafat officially is president of the Palestinian Authority, the quasi-Palestinian government in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He is also chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the one-time revolutionary body that has evolved into a large bureaucracy, and head of the PLO's dominant faction, Fatah, which functions as a political party often indistinguishable from the government.

WASHINGTON - With Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat apparently lingering near death, the White House faces a series of delicate decisions that will send important signals about President Bush's intentions for the Middle East and his relations with Israel, the Arab world and Europe. The administration will have to decide immediately whether to intervene between Israelis and Palestinians on the explosive question of whether Arafat should be buried in East Jerusalem and what level of representation to send to his funeral, officials say. Then, it will have to gauge how to work with a new Palestinian leadership and whether to help young politicians emerge who may be more committed to democratic reform than Mahmoud Abbas and Ahmed Qureia, the moderate old-guard leaders who are in charge for now. "It's a really big opportunity, but it's also very dangerous.

JERUSALEM - Flanking a chair left empty by the emergency medical evacuation of Yasser Arafat, Palestinian officials convened a leadership meeting yesterday in an attempt to allay fears of a power vacuum caused by their president's absence. It was the first time in 35 years that Arafat had not presided over a meeting of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which serves as the senior decision-making body for Palestinians. This fact underlined the void left by the decline of Arafat, whose incapacitation foretells an upheaval in Palestinian politics and uncertainty for Israelis.

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Yasser Arafat left the West Bank early today in a Jordanian military helicopter on his way to Paris to be hospitalized for ailments that have left the Palestinian leader disoriented and unable to stand. Arafat's personal physician, Dr. Ashraf Kurdi, said last night that blood tests indicated a low platelet count, and that more sophisticated diagnostic tests could only be carried out at a well-equipped medical center. Arafat's illness seemed to begin as stomach flu but turned more serious Wednesday.

TEL AVIV, Israel - The prime minister of Israel and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat found themselves on rare common ground yesterday as they battled growing challenges to their authority from erstwhile supporters. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, speaking here at a convention of his rightist Likud Party, faced down delegates opposed to his plans to withdraw Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and to invite the left-of-center Labor Party into his coalition government. Arafat, addressing Palestinian legislators in the West Bank city of Ramallah, made a rare admission that he and his aides had made mistakes that have fostered corruption and a near-total breakdown of law and order.

JERUSALEM - Palestinian leaders struggled yesterday to resolve the political confusion triggered by the prime minister's attempt to resign, as fresh unrest erupted in the Gaza Strip over Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's decision to grant a cousin expanded powers over security forces. In the West Bank city of Ramallah, Arafat met with disgruntled Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and again rejected his resignation submitted the day before, according to Saeb Erekat, a Cabinet member. Earlier yesterday, Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip burned down a building belonging to a Palestinian Authority military intelligence service amid anger over Moussa Arafat being granted broad authority over security services as part of a sudden shake-up.

RAMALLAH, West Bank - Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, citing a "state of chaos" in the Gaza Strip and in the fractious Palestinian security services, submitted his resignation yesterday to Yasser Arafat, who refused to accept it. Qureia's bid to step down, which he insists he will not rescind, throws the Palestinian political scene into disarray. He would be the second Palestinian prime minister to quit in less than a year - and the second to try without success to get Arafat, president of the Palestinian Authority, to accept reforms demanded by international mediators and, increasingly, by Palestinians.