Israeli Settlers

Implementation of the Israel-PLO agreement for Palestinian autonomy is running behind schedule because each side is reluctant to deal with those of its own citizens trying to torpedo it.Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel and Chairman Yasser Arafat of the PLO are scheduled to meet next week in Gaza to overcome roadblocks that have stalemated the negotiating process at a lower level. They have done this before, but never in circumstances so conducive to pessimism.The PLO has failed to demonstrate it is doing what it can to suppress terrorism against Israelis and the agreement.

ISRAEL'S PRIME MINISTER Benjamin Netanyahu needs to ponder the implications of his efforts to rewrite the Oslo peace accords signed by his predecessors, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres. For if any government takes it upon itself to renege on past solemn commitments, how can it hope that other nations will be willing henceforth to negotiate in good faith?Mr. Netanyahu's greater obligation is, of course, the safety and security of his people. If he believes the agreements should be formally renounced, he should say so -- and do it. Instead, he declares his allegiance to the Oslo accords and then demands "adjustments" or takes actions that are inflammatory to the Palestinians and detrimental to the authority of their leader, Yasser Arafat.

JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's landmark initiative to uproot the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip won final parliamentary approval last night after two days of acrimonious debate. The measure, which authorizes nearly $1 billion in compensation payments for the approximately 8,000 settlers who are to be evacuated, passed 59-40, despite furious protests from right-wing members of parliament who were once the prime minister's closest allies. The plan still needs final endorsement by Sharon's divided Cabinet, a showdown vote that is scheduled for Sunday.

Jerusalem -- More than 30 Palestinian policemen charged onto the grounds of the Palestinian parliament in Gaza City yesterday and fired weapons into the air, demanding more government support in a growing confrontation with the militant Islamic faction Hamas. Less than an hour later, lawmakers endorsed a plan calling on Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, to form a new Cabinet within two weeks. If he fails to do so, the government of the prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, could face a no-confidence vote.

Common to most journalists who have reported from the Holy Land is the interview with a displaced Palestinian whose family home or land has been seized and settled by Israelis. The Palestinians can often produce a rusty key from their ancestral home or a yellowed deed to their family land to prove their rightful ownership. When Israel is pressed about the issue, the government says only state or purchased land has been settled. But an Israeli peace group has challenged the veracity of the government's claims and the legality of its destructive settlement policy.

WITH A SUICIDE bus bomb in Jerusalem and a car bomb in Askhelon, Hamas' undeclared six-month cease-fire has ended. As the terrorists intended, the twin tragedies had domino effects. A poll taken later showed the peace-making Yitzhak Peres only 3 points ahead of his hard-line rival, Benjamin Netanyahu, in the May 29 election -- down from a 15-point lead three days earlier. Hamas wants Mr. Netanyahu to win and the peace process to stop.Israel, which had just reopened the borders after shutting them for a bomb scare, closed them again.

JERUSALEM - Israel's Supreme Court upheld a compensation law yesterday, erasing the main legal challenge to the government's plan to withdraw settlers from the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank. In a 10-1 decision, the court rejected claims that the law, enacted this year to provide a legal framework for the pullout, would violate the rights of about 8,000 settlers who are to be removed from their homes this summer. The justices ruled on a dozen petitions covering various aspects of the compensation law. In the majority opinion, the justices said their decision was limited to legal questions.

The failure of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization to meet the Dec. 13 target date for the beginning of Israeli troop withdrawal from occupied areas is disappointing. But no one said their historic agreement was going to be easy.The more important target date is April 13, when the Israeli withdrawal is scheduled to be completed.Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Chairman Yasser Arafat may be warriors and adversaries. But they are in this thing together. Neither can succeed without the other succeeding, or fail without the other failing.

AS ISRAEL EMERGES from a week of mourning the murder of Yitzhak Rabin, its political climate remains charged with the bitter intra-Jewish recriminations that formed the background to the assassination. The prime minister's widow, Leah Rabin, has accused Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing Likud opposition, of having incited violence -- a charge he has repudiated as a form of guilt by association and "McCarthyism." The vision of a nation united in sorrow is fading dramatically.The political calendar is force-feeding a style of heated debate that Israelis once assumed could be tolerated as a part of their cultural traditions.

THE GAZA Strip is as good a place as any to start dismantling Israel's illegal settlements. Jews living there number about 7,500, less than 1 percent of the population in this area along the Mediterranean Sea that has been controlled by the Palestinian Authority since 1994. Most Israelis have no national or religious ties to the territory, formerly held by Egypt and occupied by Israel after the 1967 war with the Arabs. But Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to evacuate - relocate, he said later - Israeli settlers from Gaza is relevant to the Middle East peace process only if Mr. Sharon actually removes them.