Make Peace

The NBA and its players union agreed to a six-year collective bargaining contract yesterday, preventing a lockout that many considered likely until late last week. The players agreed to a 19-year-old minimum age and shorter guaranteed contracts, and the owners agreed to drop a proposed "super" luxury tax and to guarantee the players 57 percent of the league's $3 billion a year in basketball-related income. The contract will subject veterans to four random tests a year for performance enhancers and recreational drugs.

Another day passed without free-agent first baseman Carlos Delgado choosing which team he'll play for in 2005 and beyond. Another day when rumors swirled, reports conflicted and the number of teams vying for his services returned to three. Eliminated by agent David Sloane late Sunday night, the New York Mets sprung to life again yesterday morning. The two sides resumed discussions, and it's believed the Mets have the best offer on the table - four years and more than $50 million. The Orioles, meanwhile, have increased their offer to at least $48 million over four years, industry sources said, and Sloane spoke again yesterday with executive vice president Jim Beattie.

YASSER ARAFAT is dead. A so-called moderate is now chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Elections to choose a Palestinian Authority president are scheduled in the West Bank and Gaza for early January. Optimists see an opportunity for restarting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the possibility of a meaningful and comprehensive settlement of the conflict. But whether this will really prove to be a positive turning point in the search for peace in the Middle East depends on whether we have learned from the failures of the past.

Arafat leaves a legacy of lies and destruction Yasser Arafat had a genius for dissimulating, and he hoodwinked everyone, including his own people ("Yasser Arafat dies," Nov. 11). He was a genius, but unlike Yitzhak Rabin and Anwar el Sadat, he failed to rise to practically every opportunity where an actual solution presented itself. Personal survival, even when this meant lying to his people about what they could expect from a peace settlement with Israel - which included most of the West Bank, all of Gaza, and parts of Jerusalem - seems to have predominated in his thinking.

FREDERICK -- The FBI told representatives of Maryland Islamic communities yesterday that it won't seek lists of their worshippers, and that it regrets that some believed they were being targeted because of their faith. Gary Bald, special agent in charge of the FBI's regional office in Baltimore, said he didn't know the source of rumors that the agency was seeking rosters of members of mosques in the state. "I can't reference the source," Bald told reporters after a private, 90-minute meeting with Muslim leaders from around Maryland.

FREDERICK -- At the risk of losing even more credibility with lawmakers in Annapolis and despite a deadline imposed by the Maryland Racing Commission, the state's racing industry acknow- ledged yesterday that it has not made peace among the ranks. If anything, the disparate factions demonstrated at the monthly meeting of the racing commission that resolving their disputes is a long shot that even the most desperate bettor wouldn't wager upon. Disputes between the thoroughbred and harness segments over revenue sharing, simulcasting and constructing off-track betting facilities -- and even the dispute between the thoroughbred horsemen and track management over racing dates next year -- remained unresolved.

A month from today - Oct. 23 - will mark the 18th anniversary of the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut. On that day, a truck packed with two tons of explosives, driven by a suicidal Muslim, hurtled into the barracks compound near Beirut airport and set off an explosion that killed 241 American servicemen. Watching body after body being pulled from the debris, I remember wondering why America was engaged in Lebanon. The Marines first went to help oversee the evacuation of Palestinian fighters after the Israeli invasion and occupation of the Lebanese capital.

In the Northern Ireland town of Omagh, a group of citizens gathered around a small garden Friday to memorialize the victims of Tuesday's devastating attacks in the United States. Michael Gallagher stepped forward and placed on the soil an American flag that had hung in his son Adrian's room since 1991. The garden itself was created to commemorate another tragedy, a 1998 car bombing not far from this spot that had killed 29 people and injured hundreds more. One of the dead was 21-year-old Adrian, who had driven into the bustling shopping district that Saturday to buy a pair of jeans and boots.

WASHINGTON - While crisis swirls in the Middle East and the Balkans, the Bush administration's first intensive diplomatic negotiations will be devoted to bringing peace to a troubled land in the Caucasus, countering Russian influence in a critical part of Asia - and helping the administration's friends in the oil industry. Tomorrow, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell will be in Key West, Fla., to begin five days of talks aimed at settling a dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Sponsored by the United States, France and Russia, the Key West conference will seek to resolve the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, a tiny mountain enclave that is historically part of Azerbaijan but is controlled by ethnic Armenian rebels.