What was going on when I was born?

NewsAnalysis BEIRUT, Lebanon, Nov. 7 - The rebellion in the Palestine Liberation Organization against its chairman, Yasir Arafat, is setting the stage for vast changes in the leadership and direction of the Palestinian guerrilla movement. In the view of Arab analysts in Beirut, three things are certain as events unfold in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli. First, regardless of whether Mr. Arafat survives the onslaught against him, he is effectively finished as the leader of a unified Palestinian guerrilla movement. Second, Mr. Arafat's loss of power would throw the P.L.O. and the entire Palestinian nationalist movement into prolonged and probably violent disarray. Third, if Mr. Arafat is removed entirely from Palestinian politics, some important West Bank leaders are believed to be ready to step forward and join with King Hussein in negotiating a settlement with Israel along the general lines of President Reagan's Middle East peace initiative.

Hundreds of European banks will start linking their automatic cash dispenser systems next summer in a move that will eventually enable travelers carrying small blue plastic cards marked Eurocheque to draw cash from money machines 24 hours a day, seven days a week throughout Europe. Already, the plastic card is being used by Eurocheque's 26 million card holders to guarantee personal checks in any of the organization's 19 member countries, including Hungary, Poland and the Soviet Union. Under the new system, in addition to guaranteeing personal checks, the card will combine the functions of a cash-dispenser card and credit card. Control of Field Sought The new system, announced at a meeting in Lisbon in October to coincide with Eurocheque's 15th anniversary, represents a new effort by the powerful group of European banks to retain a dominant position in the provision of financial services to its customers. Specifically, the banks say, they want to pre-empt the field before any proliferation of nonbank credit cards and other payment and financial devices can take place, as has happened in the United States.

The chief United States Government spokesman on Grenada today denied reports that more than 100 bodies had been discovered in a mass grave on the island. The initial report came from a high State Department official Sunday night in Barbados and was confirmed in the State Department's noon briefing in Washington today by John Hughes, the department spokesman. But this evening the State Department said it was ''deferring to United States representatives'' in Grenada, who said the existence of such a grave site could not be confirmed. Grenadian police officials and officers of the Caribbean defense force allied with the United States forces similarly discounted the reports of the discovery of a mass grave.

For at least three well-known off- price clothing merchandisers, the time was right for taking their family-owned businesses public over the last six months. But that window on Wall Street may be closing, analysts say, as the retailing industry moves into a recovery. Last May the 66-unit Dress Barn went public, raising $17 million for the Jaffe family. In June, the 31-unit Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse Corporation went public, rising $66 million for the Milstein family. And a month ago, in a leap from garment district obscurity to publicly owned company, Sy Syms Merns sold about three million newly issued shares of stock in the Syms Corporation, making himself about $44 million. It is not merely a coincidence that Syms and other family companies chose this particular time to cash in. According to the National Retailing Merchants Association, the off-price business is ''hurtling toward maturity at a record pace.''

Governor Cuomo, acting as if he himself were running, ended the campaign for the $1.25 billion transportation bond issue yesterday at a traditional pre-election rally in the garment center. The statewide vote on the bond issue is the highlight of what are largely local elections today in New York. In New Jersey the entire 120- member Legislature will be elected, and in Connecticut voters will elect mayors and first selectmen. Elsewhere in the country, Philadelphia, Boston, Houston and San Francisco will elect mayors, Washington State will elect a senator, and Kentucky and Mississippi will choose governors. (Page A26.)

Against a background of American, Israeli and Syrian military buildups in the Middle East, the Reagan Administration said today that the United States had no plans to attack Syria and urged the Damascus Government to show ''restraint and prudence.'' The comments by senior officials came as tensions again rose in the Middle East. Israeli and Syrian reservists were reported to have been called up, and American naval forces were strengthened in the eastern Mediterranean. A senior State Department official said, however, that Israel and the United States were concerned and uncertain over the consequences of what he called ''an increasingly hard line'' in Syria. He reported on the results of a week of American-Israeli consultations in Israel, in which the sides analyzed the influx of Soviet weapons into Syria and Syria's seeming lack of cooperation in the search for a solution to the Lebanese crisis.

THE skin may seem little more than a husk; just an expanse of surface to be covered and uncovered, tanned, shaved, painted, tattooed and otherwise assaulted for reasons of beauty, comfort, vanity or current style. But, in fact, the skin is an organ, the body's largest, and one of its most important. Now it is becoming clear that its functions are far more complex and various than even scientists who study the skin imagined only a few years ago. ''This is one of the fastest-moving areas of molecular biology,'' said Dr. Irwin M. Freedberg of New York University Medical Center, an institution known worldwide for research on the skin and its diseases. ''Now it is just taking off.''

An ailing Yuri V. Andropov did not appear atop the Lenin Mausoleum today for the annual Revolution Day parade, breaking a Soviet tradition. Questions about his condition and its consequences spread through the diplomatic community. (In Washington, senior American officials said they believed that Mr. Andropov might be seriously ill and they suspected that political maneuvering over the succession was under way. Page A8.)

''You may say that the Americanscould not have this in their backyard.

Washington urged Syria to show ''restraint and prudence'' and said the United States had no plans to attack Syrian forces. The comments by senior officials came as Israel and Syria called up reservists and the United States strengthened its naval forces in the eastern Mediterranean. Still, a senior State Department official said that the United States and Israel were concerned and uncertain over the consequences of what he said was ''an increasingly hard line'' on the part of Syria. (Page A1, Column 6.) Israel assured Syria it had no intention of mounting an attack against Syrian forces. Israel has announced plans for a mobilization of its forces later this week, but officials said it was a routine, semiannual maneuver that was ''in no way connected with events in Lebanon.'' (A15:2-4.)

Interest rates stabilized yesterday, as government securities dealers, who make the markets in Treasury issues, estimated that the increases in rates last week were enough to attract investors for this week's heavy schedule of Treasury financings. Though yields were higher than a week earlier, they were basically unchanged from Friday. The average yield for $6.5 billion of 11 percent three-year notes that were auctioned at 12.30 P.M. was 11.11 percent, up from a 10.85 percent yield quoted for similar notes a week ago. Three- and six-month Treasury bills totaling $12.4 billion were sold at average rates of 8.83 percent and 9.02 percent, respectively, up from 8.41 percent and 8.68 percent a week ago, when only $7 billion were auctioned.

Property that the city confiscates from illegal peddlers could go to the poor, the homeless, the elderly and schoolchildren instead of being auctioned, under a bill signed yesterday by Mayor Koch. The bill allows the Police Department, which is now required to auction confiscated property, to distribute the seized merchandise in other ways. ''These goods, lawfully seized and not reclaimed,'' the Mayor said, ''would serve a much better purpose if the city were able to use the goods for governmental or charitable purposes.'' What he had in mind, he said, was clothing, umbrellas (''The property clerk has a lot of those'') and electronic calculators (''If they worked, they could go into the school system'').