World Notes MIDDLE EAST

Sabry Khalil Banna, a.k.a. Abu Nidal, is the meanest guerrilla leader of them all. Sentenced to death by the Palestine Liberation Organization in the mid- 1970s for trying to assassinate P.L.O. Chairman Yasser Arafat, Abu Nidal has long been ostracized by his peers for arranging the murders of moderate Palestinians and staging such atrocities as the 1985 airport massacres in Rome and Vienna. For several weeks, however, Arafat has reportedly been contemplating a rapprochement with Abu Nidal in the name of Palestinian unity. "Politics is politics," said an Arafat aide in Tunis last week, confirming that a reconciliation was still under consideration, provided Abu Nidal agrees to curb his terrorist ways.

Arafat wants to consolidate all Palestinian groups under the P.L.O. umbrella, perhaps to prepare them for possible negotiations with Israel within the framework of an international peace conference. He also wants to prevent his Arab rivals, notably Syrian President Hafez Assad, from continuing to exploit Palestinian feuding. For his part, Abu Nidal might welcome a reconciliation with the P.L.O. because his relations with his Syrian hosts have cooled considerably since 1986, when Assad came under heavy international pressure to distance himself from Abu Nidal-style terrorism.