Greater Israel

TEL AVIV, Israel -- Yitzhak Shamir shook his head slowly, his smile turning hard at the thought of the agreement Israel was about to sign yesterday in Washington with the Palestinians."

WAYNE, Pa. - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has never minced words about his long-term vision for Israel and the future he has in store for his Palestinian neighbors - a greater Israel in control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Within this greater Israel, Palestinians would be confined to "security zones" dotted by Jewish settlements and Israeli army bases, their movement closely watched and regulated and their economy tightly controlled and subservient to that of Israel. Palestinians would be allowed to "administer" themselves - take care of the daily chores of picking up garbage, sweeping the streets, regulating traffic and chasing common thieves - but would not be allowed to build an independent economy or live free from outside interference as a sovereign nation.

OFRA, West Bank -- The fruit of Benjamin Netanyahu's election victory will appear in a field now thick with only brambles and weeds, the Jewish settlers believe.They envision 35 duplex homes arising from the field -- already sown with underground water and power lines -- to house new settlers coming to Ofra.The Labor Party's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin blocked the construction plans to expand the settlement when he won election in 1992, and his successor, Shimon Peres, did the same. The settlers expect Netanyahu to give the go-ahead.

LONDON -- A short 2 1/2 years ago, then foreign minister of Israel Shimon Peres observed: "I don't think we have in the Middle East a process of peace. We have a war for peace, because it calls unfortunately for victims and casualties."Probably, not even in the most pessimistic moments of this melancholic man, did he foresee that soon after he spoke he'd witness the triple whammy of the murder of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the subsequent victory at the polls of Likud's dTC party leader Binyamin Netanyahu and the effective pacing of negotiations under the Oslo accords by terrorist elements on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides.

WAYNE, Pa. - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has never minced words about his long-term vision for Israel and the future he has in store for his Palestinian neighbors - a greater Israel in control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Within this greater Israel, Palestinians would be confined to "security zones" dotted by Jewish settlements and Israeli army bases, their movement closely watched and regulated and their economy tightly controlled and subservient to that of Israel. Palestinians would be allowed to "administer" themselves - take care of the daily chores of picking up garbage, sweeping the streets, regulating traffic and chasing common thieves - but would not be allowed to build an independent economy or live free from outside interference as a sovereign nation.

JERUSALEM -- For a moment, in the wee hours of yesterday, the fresh wound of defeat brought out the old underground fighter in Yitzhak Shamir.The cotton-mouth way of his usual speech disappeared. He stopped staring at his shoelaces. He shook as though with fever, and raised his fist in an angry cry."Our movement . . . has never been spoiled. Everything we have achieved, we have achieved with great effort and suffering," he said in a voice hoarse with emotion. "We have had to walk a path of thorns."

WASHINGTON -- President Bush, moving to jump-start the Middle East peace process with the help of a more receptive Israeli government, will send Secretary of State James A. Baker III to the region this weekend.Mr. Bush also has invited Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to Kennebunkport, Maine, next month, it was announced yesterday.Mr. Bush spoke by telephone with Mr. Rabin yesterday as Israel's Parliament formally installed the new Labor-led government. A White House statement said Mr. Rabin voiced a desire to give new momentum to the peace process.

LONDON -- A short 2 1/2 years ago, then foreign minister of Israel Shimon Peres observed: "I don't think we have in the Middle East a process of peace. We have a war for peace, because it calls unfortunately for victims and casualties."Probably, not even in the most pessimistic moments of this melancholic man, did he foresee that soon after he spoke he'd witness the triple whammy of the murder of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the subsequent victory at the polls of Likud's dTC party leader Binyamin Netanyahu and the effective pacing of negotiations under the Oslo accords by terrorist elements on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides.

PARIS -- Israel's great mistake has been to think that its only really important relationship is with the United States. Israeli leaders have believed that if they kept Washington and American public opinion satisfied, Israel's essential security was assured.What the Palestinians and the Arab governments thought was believed a secondary issue. The United States was expected to defend Israel should Israel ever find itself in difficulties it could not handle itself.So long as support from the Jewish community in the United States was solid, and American opinion in general remained sympathetic to Israel, the Israeli government believed Israel secure.

AS THE CONFLICT in Israel evolves from one of nations to a struggle of peoples, Moslems and Jews murdering one another because one is Moslem, the other Jew, the communal struggle in Lebanon approaches its logical outcome, which is destruction of Christian Lebanon.Lebanon's Christianity is why it has survived as a nation since before the Arab conquest of the seventh century, in a region since dominated by Moslems. Lebanese Christians, mostly Catholics of the ancient Maronite rite, welcomed the Crusaders, joined them, survived them, and still managed to keep their independence afterward under the loose rule of the Arab and Turkish authorities controlling Syria.

PARIS -- Israel's great mistake has been to think that its only really important relationship is with the United States. Israeli leaders have believed that if they kept Washington and American public opinion satisfied, Israel's essential security was assured.What the Palestinians and the Arab governments thought was believed a secondary issue. The United States was expected to defend Israel should Israel ever find itself in difficulties it could not handle itself.So long as support from the Jewish community in the United States was solid, and American opinion in general remained sympathetic to Israel, the Israeli government believed Israel secure.

OFRA, West Bank -- The fruit of Benjamin Netanyahu's election victory will appear in a field now thick with only brambles and weeds, the Jewish settlers believe.They envision 35 duplex homes arising from the field -- already sown with underground water and power lines -- to house new settlers coming to Ofra.The Labor Party's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin blocked the construction plans to expand the settlement when he won election in 1992, and his successor, Shimon Peres, did the same. The settlers expect Netanyahu to give the go-ahead.

TEL AVIV, Israel -- Yitzhak Shamir shook his head slowly, his smile turning hard at the thought of the agreement Israel was about to sign yesterday in Washington with the Palestinians."

A photo caption in yesterday's editions erroneously said that Tel Aviv is the former capital of Israel.The Sun regrets the error.TEL AVIV, Israel -- A terrorist with a bomb turned a sunny morning rush hour into a scene of death yesterday, killing 20 aboard a crowded commuter bus and further shaking Israeli faith in the peace process.The attack led immediately to demands from politicians and the public for retaliation by the Israeli government.Police believe a suicide bomber boarded the No. 5 bus that makes its way through the downtown district and detonated the explosive in the deadliest terrorist attack in Israel in 16 years.

Paris. -- The most extreme nationalist is the one whose nationality is in doubt. The Kach movement in Israel, whose member, Baruch Goldstein, killed 52 Muslim worshipers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, February 25, is one of several American politico-religious sects transplanted to Israel.Late arrivals on the Israeli scene, these sects aggressively employ the iconography of the Holocaust and of a Nazi persecution they never themselves experienced. The Hebron murderer, Baruch Goldstein, wore the yellow star to political demonstrations inside Israel but never had to wear it in Germany.

Paris. -- Israel is supposed to retire its army from the Gaza strip and from Jericho today. Despite intensified violence in Gaza and in Israel, the Israeli government seems determined that its army will indeed go -- whether or not it will all go, or go precisely on schedule.Its departure inspires the fear and anger of the Jewish colonists in the occupied territories, seized by Israel in the 1967 war. There are to be military arrangements to protect them, but they see it in their interest to provoke conflict with the Palestinians, a sentiment reciprocated by the Palestinians opposed to the Arafat-Peres peace agreement.

Seldom in the dead reckoning of nations is it that a country o its own free will decides on a 180-degree course correction, especially if it means giving up something considered to be of vital national interest.Thirty years ago, Charles De Gaulle captained such a change. Coming to power as the hawkish darling of French settlers in the rebellion-torn province of Algeria, De Gaulle saw that the struggle to keep Algeria as a de jure part of metropolitan France was tearing his nation apart. He had both the will and the national stature to wrench his country away from a colonial mentality it had held for 150 years.

Paris. -- Israel is supposed to retire its army from the Gaza strip and from Jericho today. Despite intensified violence in Gaza and in Israel, the Israeli government seems determined that its army will indeed go -- whether or not it will all go, or go precisely on schedule.Its departure inspires the fear and anger of the Jewish colonists in the occupied territories, seized by Israel in the 1967 war. There are to be military arrangements to protect them, but they see it in their interest to provoke conflict with the Palestinians, a sentiment reciprocated by the Palestinians opposed to the Arafat-Peres peace agreement.

Seldom in the dead reckoning of nations is it that a country o its own free will decides on a 180-degree course correction, especially if it means giving up something considered to be of vital national interest.Thirty years ago, Charles De Gaulle captained such a change. Coming to power as the hawkish darling of French settlers in the rebellion-torn province of Algeria, De Gaulle saw that the struggle to keep Algeria as a de jure part of metropolitan France was tearing his nation apart. He had both the will and the national stature to wrench his country away from a colonial mentality it had held for 150 years.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush, moving to jump-start the Middle East peace process with the help of a more receptive Israeli government, will send Secretary of State James A. Baker III to the region this weekend.Mr. Bush also has invited Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to Kennebunkport, Maine, next month, it was announced yesterday.Mr. Bush spoke by telephone with Mr. Rabin yesterday as Israel's Parliament formally installed the new Labor-led government. A White House statement said Mr. Rabin voiced a desire to give new momentum to the peace process.