United States Foreign Relations Plo

The head of the Palestine Liberation Organization's Washington office said Wednesday that he will sue to block the State Department from shutting down his operation and vowed, "I will not leave." "I will not abandon my rights to freedom of speech and freedom of expression," said Hassan Rahman, director of the Palestinian Information Office, which the department said Tuesday must close within 30 days.

President Bush on Friday all but accused Yasser Arafat of direct involvement in arms smuggling, saying that he was "very, very disappointed" in the Palestinian Authority president. Arafat "must make a full effort to rout out terror in the Middle East," Bush said. "And ordering up weapons that were intercepted on a boat headed . . . for that part of the world is not part of fighting terror. That's enhancing terror."

An Arab group, angered over Secretary of State George P. Shultz's refusal to grant Yasser Arafat a visa to enter the United States, wants Stanford University to bar Shultz from its classrooms. The South Bay Arab American Organization, in a letter to Stanford President Donald Kennedy, said Shultz, a professor in Stanford's Graduate School of Business, should not be allowed to teach when he returns from a leave of absence.

The Bush administration, signaling a turning point in its Middle East policy, put Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat on notice Sunday that it will no longer deal with him unless he immediately closes down extremist organizations and arrests the militants behind escalating violence in Israel. President Bush met Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, moving up a meeting planned for today.

The Reagan Administration, citing national security concerns, announced Saturday that it has denied Yasser Arafat a visa to enter the United States to address the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Thursday when it opens debate on Palestinian issues. In a statement explaining the decision by Secretary of State George P.

PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat vowed Sunday to return to his occupied homeland in Jericho or the Gaza Strip "within weeks" and said that Palestinians will seek an immediate confederation with Jordan after they attain statehood in the next several years. "It is coming," Arafat confidently predicted in an interview aboard his jet, bound for Washington for today's signing of a groundbreaking peace accord with Israel.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright heads to the Middle East this week for meetings that could set the tone for U.S. involvement in the troubled region for the rest of the Clinton administration, and possibly years longer. Israel and the Palestinians--negotiating without direct U.S. involvement for the first time in almost four years--are closing in on an interim peace agreement that probably will be signed shortly after Albright arrives.

For more than a year, Yasser Arafat has vowed to declare the establishment of a Palestinian state on May 4, despite repeated Israeli promises to retaliate if he does so. The Palestinian Authority president has used the issue of independence--and the specter of the violence that might result--as a powerful bargaining chip.

Palestine Liberation Organization ruling bodies will meet in April to decide whether Palestinians will declare an independent state on May 4, an advisor to Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat said Saturday. "Several PLO bodies will be called in April, most probably in the first week of April, to announce the Palestinian decision regarding declaration of a state," said Nabil abu Rudaineh. He said the meetings would be held in Palestinian self-rule areas.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell ventured into the Mideast peace process Sunday in his first meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, but he came away with no significant signs that his visit had changed the thinking of either party to the conflict. Despite lengthy talks with Israeli Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, Powell acknowledged that it will be "some time" before the two sides revive negotiations.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell affirmed his support Friday for establishing a Palestinian state on land held by Israel and said he was trying to arrange a meeting with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to give peacemaking "a jump-start." Powell said Israel should give up land for peace, as provided in U.N. Security Council resolutions adopted after the 1967 and 1973 Middle East wars.

The Bush administration demanded Thursday that Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat arrest and punish those responsible for the deadly pizza parlor bombing in Jerusalem, but at the same time urged Israel to limit its retaliation to prevent the conflict from escalating. "Nothing is gained through cowardly acts such as this," President Bush said in a statement issued in Crawford, Texas, where he is vacationing.

Clearly concerned that Middle East violence has developed a momentum that the parties can no longer control, Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority is urging the Bush administration to increase its pressure on Israel to end a policy of "targeted killings" of Palestinian militants. The appeal was contained in a letter to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell from Nabil Shaath, a top aide to Arafat, president of the Palestinian Authority.

The Bush administration's foreign policy strategists huddled at the White House on Monday, examining proposals for U.S. action to curb violence in the Middle East despite growing evidence that the United States, Israel and the Palestinian Authority can do little to stop suicide bombers. Even though both Israel and the Palestinian Authority have made tenuous cease-fire declarations, a fierce gun battle raged Monday in the Gaza Strip, undercutting U.S. diplomacy before it could get started.

Prodded by the findings of a prestigious international commission and shaken by escalating violence, the Bush administration changed course Monday and plunged into Middle East mediation, filling the post of peace envoy, which it had planned to leave vacant. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell appointed Ambassador to Jordan William Burns, who is awaiting confirmation as assistant secretary of State for the Near East, to take the lead in U.S.

If there is a chance to pull Israelis and Palestinians out of their downward spiral of violence, it lies in the road map outlined by the international commission headed by former U.S. Sen. George J. Mitchell and strongly endorsed Monday by the Bush administration. But in the caldron of hatred that is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict today, few see much hope of success in the commission's coolheaded prescription for ending the fighting and returning to negotiations.

When President Clinton visited the Gaza Strip 25 months ago, he received a hero's welcome and the grateful fawnings of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat. Today, Arafat, or at least those around him, is openly contemptuous of Clinton and the U.S. "peace team" that toiled in the diplomatic trenches for the last eight years with, the Palestinians argue, little to show for it. During Clinton's Gaza visit, stores sold U.S.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell affirmed his support Friday for establishing a Palestinian state on land held by Israel and said he was trying to arrange a meeting with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to give peacemaking "a jump-start." Powell said Israel should give up land for peace, as provided in U.N. Security Council resolutions adopted after the 1967 and 1973 Middle East wars.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell ventured into the Mideast peace process Sunday in his first meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, but he came away with no significant signs that his visit had changed the thinking of either party to the conflict. Despite lengthy talks with Israeli Prime Minister-elect Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, Powell acknowledged that it will be "some time" before the two sides revive negotiations.

When President Clinton visited the Gaza Strip 25 months ago, he received a hero's welcome and the grateful fawnings of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat. Today, Arafat, or at least those around him, is openly contemptuous of Clinton and the U.S. "peace team" that toiled in the diplomatic trenches for the last eight years with, the Palestinians argue, little to show for it. During Clinton's Gaza visit, stores sold U.S.