WASHINGTON – New York’s junior senator yesterday was sharper in her criticism of the Palestinian Authority than Israel’s Likud prime minister at the annual policy conference for America’s largest pro-Israel lobby.

Before thousands of activists of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Senator Clinton, a Democrat of New York, criticized Palestinian textbooks and other materials that “infect” young minds with anti-Semitism. “Using children as pawns in a political process is tantamount to child abuse,” she said to cheers from activists. “And we must say it has to end now.”

By contrast, the main speaker at the conclusion of the Aipac conference, Prime Minister Sharon, was conciliatory to the Palestinian Authority’s chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, who is scheduled to meet with President Bush tomorrow at the White House. Mr. Sharon, an opponent of the Oslo accords pushed by President Clinton, proposed yesterday to release 400 political prisoners and transfer control of more towns to the area controlled by the Palestinian Authority.

“We will do our utmost to cooperate with the new Palestinian leadership and will take the needed measures to help Chairman Abbas,” he said. “We are willing to help Chairman Abbas as much as we can, as long as we do not risk our security.”

The contrast between the two politicians was stark yesterday as two members of the audience were carted away after shouting down Mr. Sharon as he discussed his ambitious plan to remove Jewish settlers from Gaza. “I appreciate Chairman Abbas’s strategic decision to condemn violence and terrorism,” Mr. Sharon said. “With this approach, he can be a partner in implementing the road map and to move the process forward. But his statements must be translated into real actions on the ground.”

Not everything Mr. Sharon said implied a willingness to negotiate. He began his remarks by saying, “I came here from Jerusalem, the eternal, united, and undivided capital of the state of Israel and the Jewish people forever and ever.” The status of Israel’s capital was one of the final sticking points in the efforts in 2000 by Senator Clinton’s husband to broker a deal between Mr. Sharon’s predecessor and Yasser Arafat.

With Mr. Sharon toward the end of his career and at the height of his power, he has sought to put in motion a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza that he hopes will spur a lasting peace with Palestinian Arabs. Meanwhile, Mrs. Clinton is widely believed to be eyeing a run for president in 2008. If so, she will need to persuade Americans that she is as tough as any Republican on national security.

Mr. Sharon’s digs at Mr. Abbas were muted compared to Mrs. Clinton’s fiery condemnation of the Palestinian Authority’s incitement of violence. “In a democracy, even a fledgling democracy, leaders must be held accountable and President Abbas must be held accountable for the actions that take place under his leadership,” Mrs. Clinton said. She said she was pleased that a version of the notorious anti-Jewish fabrication, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, had recently been removed from a Palestinian Authority Web site. “The question is, what was it doing there in the first place?” the senator asked.

Only five years ago, Mr. Sharon was fending off accusations in the international press that he sparked the Palestinian Arab intifadah when he visited on September 28, 2000, the Temple Mount with 100 Israeli armed guards and declared that any Jew can visit any location in the Jewish state.

Ms. Clinton was attacked in her 2000 Senate campaign by many in the pro-Israel community for being too close to Yasser Arafat. She had to explain hugging Suha Arafat when she was first lady and her decision to allow an Arafat associate, Hani Masri, to host a private fund-raising event on her behalf. On her December 11, 1999, visit to Gaza, Ms. Arafat accused Israelis of poisoning Palestinian water supplies and causing cancer in women and children, with Mrs. Clinton at her side. At the time, Mrs. Clinton was blasted by American Zionists for her silence.

Since then, Mrs. Clinton has worked diligently to reinvent herself on the question of Israel. She has held hearings on the issue of anti-Semitism in Palestinian and Arab textbooks and state-run press, an issue that was barely noticed in the 1990s when she was first lady.

Ms. Clinton often chose to frame her remarks with “we” and “us” including herself among the group of activists before they went to Congress to encourage their representatives to sign a letter calling on the White House to press Mr. Abbas to follow through on his pledge to dismantle terrorist cells in the Gaza before Israel leaves it. “We must also demand that President Abbas dismantle the structures of terror,” the senator said.