World Notes MIDDLE EAST

The Middle East is never short of peace plans, only of peace. Last week both the Israeli government and Palestinian groups were engaged in heated internal discussions over the latest proposal for holding elections in the occupied territories. Forwarded by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the plan loosely parallels an election scheme put forth last April by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. But Mubarak's version includes some provisions that the Israeli leader has already rejected, including the participation of Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the exchange of land for peace.

West Bank leaders and the Palestine Liberation Organization were debating whether Mubarak's deliberate omission of any reference to an eventual Palestinian state was too much of a sop to Israeli sensibilities to warrant acceptance. They are also concerned because the P.L.O. is excluded from direct participation. For their part, four senior Cabinet officials could not even agree whether to acknowledge the Egyptian proposal, since doing so would in effect admit that the Shamir plan had been supplanted. Insisting his own initiative must be answered first, Shamir's dour response to Egypt: You agree to the principles of our plan, then we can discuss yours.