Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

DAMASCUS, Syria -- In the Old City market, where the eyes of the president gaze down from huge murals and where the ears of the president's spies are always near, no one whispers anymore of Israel and peace.Now the Syrians talk quietly of Iran and Iraq, the untrustworthy Americans, and a lost opportunity for peace."We no longer believe that we'll make peace with Disneyland," said a young man who gave his name as Aladdin, and who used Disneyland as a code word for Israel."We no longer say anything about peace.

Will Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's announcement that he accepts the idea of a Palestinian state help move the Middle East toward peace? Yes 25% No 63% Not sure 12% (295 votes, results not scientific) Next poll: : Is the Baltimore Police Department doing a good job of responding to increased reports of criminal activity in and around the Inner Harbor? Vote at baltimoresun.com/vote

Will Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's announcement that he accepts the idea of a Palestinian state help move the Middle East toward peace? Yes 25% No 63% Not sure 12% (295 votes, results not scientific) Next poll: : Is the Baltimore Police Department doing a good job of responding to increased reports of criminal activity in and around the Inner Harbor? Vote at baltimoresun.com/vote

Progress in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict tends to be painfully incremental. But marginal progress is better than none at all, which is why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's announcement Sunday that he is willing to accept a Palestinian state is a welcome development - even if it doesn't go nearly far enough. With Mr. Netanyahu's speech, a milestone has been reached. From this day forward, there can no longer be any serious debate about whether a Palestinian state will (or should)

Sister Madonna Kolbenschlag, 64, an author and former House of Representatives policy analyst, died Saturday of a stroke in Santiago, Chile. She was 64. She taught American studies and women's studies at the University of Notre Dame in the 1980s, and was a legislative aide and research consultant in the U.S. House. She also was involved in human rights investigations in Central America. Thomas Joseph Peterson, 102, the oldest member of the Nez Perce tribe, died Sunday in Tacoma, Wash.

JERUSALEM -- As peace talks snagged over Israel's expected turnover of Hebron to Palestinian self-rule, opposition to the move within Israel turned nasty yesterday, with right-wing extremists threatening Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.A year after Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated for handing over to Arabs lands considered by some Israelis to have been given by God to the Jews in the Bible, graffiti started appearing on Jerusalem walls with new threats by extremist groups such as Kach.

IN THE WORDS of President Clinton, "the historic relationship between the United States and Israel has not and will not change." Or in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's words, it "transcends personalities and politics and parties."That is the agreed context in which they will disagree and their policies will differ. Such prioritizing was the chief product of the new Israeli prime minister's first visit to Washington as a foreign leader rather than as a lower level official or as an American, which he nearly was.This needed to be achieved.

THE WHITE HOUSE summit today and tomorrow is a calculated risk. President Clinton was right to call it. What he needs to do about the crisis that erupted in Jerusalem is to act presidentially, to do what is right and to ignore the considerable risk of being seen to fail. That is what he is doing. To have done nothing, the alternative, would have been wrong.The summit may fail because Israelis and Palestinians are far apart and the principals bring out the worst in each other. The devious Chairman Yasser Arafat has not convinced Israelis of his commitment to peace.

PRESIDENT CLINTON'S GAMBLE on a hastily called, unscripted summit meeting of Chairman Yasser Arafat and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to have assured follow-on negotiations.The intense summit achieved only two modest tangible goals. One was to start a genuine personal relationship between the longtime PLO leader and the hawkish prime minister of Israel. The other was a commitment to restart a negotiation, on Israeli redeployment from Hebron, on Sunday at a border point with Dennis Ross of the State Department mediating.

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 -- Days before Israel is set to begin moving thousands of settlers from the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's chief political rival, Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, resigned yesterday to protest the withdrawal plan, saying the government was acting with "complete blindness." His resignation is unlikely to disrupt the withdrawal that is scheduled to begin Aug. 15. But it underscores the dissension Sharon's plan has created among hawkish members of the Cabinet, including many in Sharon's Likud Party.

JERUSALEM - Israel's Cabinet soundly defeated an attempt yesterday to delay the planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip by three months. The 18-3 decision was the first of two planned votes this week on proposals to postpone the pullout, scheduled to start next month. The parliament, or Knesset, is expected to defeat Wednesday a separate measure seeking a delay. The proposals stoked fresh tensions between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his main political foe, Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who joined two other rightist ministers yesterday in backing the proposed delay.

YASSER Arafat has one last chance to accept the deal offered by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak at Camp David, in July, including a slice of Jerusalem. Doing so would restore the Palestinian economy to promise, from the despair to which it was plunged by Israel's response to the Palestinian uprising. By calling an election for February, Mr. Barak is not giving Mr. Arafat much time. But then, Mr. Arafat had all the time he needed and used it to trigger the Palestinian uprising he may not now be able to rein in. A majority of Israelis want peace along the lines Mr. Barak offered.

JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, in a new throw of the dice to retain power, announced last night that he would resign and compete in automatic elections for the prime minister's job in 60 days. Barak's move apparently was intended to block a political comeback by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who polls indicate would trounce Barak in a two-way contest. Under Israeli law, only a sitting member of parliament can run if a prime minister resigns. Netanyahu gave up his seat last year.

JERUSALEM - One man championed peace with the Arabs and offered more than any of his recent predecessors to get it. The other's name is linked inextricably with one of the most brutal acts against Arab civilians in two decades. Now Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon need each other, and their romance of convenience is putting the Middle East on edge. Against a backdrop of continuing bloodshed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, both former generals, Prime Minister Barak and Sharon, hard-line leader of the opposition Likud party, are locked in negotiations to team up in a government of "national emergency" that many see as the final nail in the coffin for the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

JERUSALEM - Sixteen months after being soundly voted out of power, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears about to rise from the ashes of scandal and stage a political comeback. Netanyahu cleared the biggest hurdle in his return to the political stage last night, when Israel's attorney general announced that he would not indict the former Likud leader or his wife on corruption charges. Attorney General Eliakim Rubinstein did not let Netanyahu off gently. While saying there was not sufficient evidence to convict Netanyahu, he criticized what he called a "depressing picture of conduct."

JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is ready to bring his former foreign minister, David Levy, back into his Cabinet in an effort to shore up his disintegrating coalition and to increase his chances of re-election or assembling a unity government.Levy, a political moderate who resigned in January after denouncing the Netanyahu administration as aimless, said yesterday that he would return, though the terms are still under negotiation.A veteran of Israeli politics, Levy has been offered either the Finance Ministry or the National Infrastructures Ministry, a place in the inner circle, a role in the "final-status" talks with the Palestinians and a chance to lead future negotiations with Syria.

Sister Madonna Kolbenschlag, 64, an author and former House of Representatives policy analyst, died Saturday of a stroke in Santiago, Chile. She was 64. She taught American studies and women's studies at the University of Notre Dame in the 1980s, and was a legislative aide and research consultant in the U.S. House. She also was involved in human rights investigations in Central America. Thomas Joseph Peterson, 102, the oldest member of the Nez Perce tribe, died Sunday in Tacoma, Wash.