Palestine

"Exodus 1947" is a real-life "Mission Impossible" that starts with a broken-down, Chesapeake Bay steamer in Baltimore and ends with the birth of a new nation in Palestine.Along the way, there's a deadly blockade of British gunships, 4,500 refugees from Hitler's European death camps, freedom fighters from the Haganah and the heroism of a crew of Jewish men in their 20s and 30s, many of whom had never even been to sea."Exodus 1947," which is co-produced by Maryland Public Television and airs at 10 tomorrow night, is a documentary you don't want to miss.

Fifty years ago, a converted Chesapeake steamer left the Baltimore harbor with a mysterious mix of credentials and cargo: a Honduran registry, an official destination of China, a load of canned food, medical supplies and diapers.It was a secret voyage supported largely by local people. But it was headed for something that would change the face of the Middle East: a showdown in international waters that would help create the state of Israel and produce a best-selling novel and movie.That maritime saga was replayed in the waters off Baltimore yesterday in a 50th anniversary re-enactment of Exodus 1947.

PARIS -- The political struggle between Palestinians and Israelis may soon explosively escalate. The Palestinian authority may shortly assert that an independent and sovereign Palestinian state exists, and claim U.N. admittance and full international recognition.The most important Palestinian newspaper in Jerusalem, Al-Quds, and the London-based daily Asharq al-Awsat (which has a quarter-million circulation in the Arab world), both have in the past few days published articles arguing that a Palestinian state already exists, so far as the law of nations is concerned, and recommending that the Palestinian authorities assert that state's sovereignty over Palestine.

The true story of the Old Bay Line steamer that glided out of Baltimore harbor nightly on a circuit to Norfolk and wound up playing a role in the founding of Israel is one of those maritime sagas so rich it became a best-selling novel and then a movie.Now the passenger boat with two identities and lives -- one as the President Warfield, the other as the Exodus 1947 -- is the subject of a new exhibit at the Jewish Historical Society of Maryland, where the ship's original brass bell and steam whistle are on display.

WASHINGTON -- My father died last week. He was born in 1899, just 11 days before the beginning of this century of hope and horror, a century in which personal life and political life were so painfully linked for so much of mankind.At the beginning of World War I, my father's family fled westward to Vienna. Judah Wattenberg was a teen-ager when he was commissioned a lieutenant in the Austrian army. He was on a train, headed to the front, when the Armistice was signed. As a leader of a Zionist youth group he took his Austrian rifle to Palestine to work in the fields and on the roads, helping build hope for a Jewish state.

THE SUN'S EDITORIAL, ''Fighting terror at the summit,'' (March 12 makes a major factual error. In several places it refers to ''Palestine.''While Israel has generously granted the PLO the trappings of a de facto state, the final status of the lands in Yasser Arafat's jurisdiction has not been determined. It is still subject to )R negotiation.The Sun's editors may will it; that does not make it so.The editorial makes another mistake and that is in its premise.The idea that the summit in Sharm el Sheik would be effective was predicted on the belief that Arafat and the Palestinian Authority were active participants in the war against terror.

Taiwan is not just China's internal affairThank you very much for your continuing coverage of China's ''reckless and provocative'' missile tests against Taiwan when the island is having the first democratic presidential election in the history of any Chinese society.Whether President Lee Teng-hui of Taiwan should be re-elected is debatable, but could only be decided by the voters in Taiwan, judging his ability to run the nation. It should not be decided by some dictators and warlords in Beijing whose hands are still full of the blood from the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

As Maryland goes, so goes New York?Hamas terrorism cannot destroy Israel. It can destroy only Palestine.Good news for Queen Elizabeth, who could use some. The Australians threw out their republican prime minister and may keep her on their throne.You can have stricter state curricula standards, or stronger site-based school management, but you cannot have both fads simultaneously.Pub Date: 3/06/96

THE LANDSLIDE election of Yasser Arafat as president and of 88 council members gives legitimacy to the Palestinian Authority, which was established by agreement of Israel and the PLO. Mr. Arafat's Fatah faction will dominate the council. But that group will have real independents and oppositionists, some endorsed by the extremist group, Hamas, which declined to run its own slate. It will also include women.This was not a picture-perfect election. Since arriving in vTC Palestine, Mr. Arafat has shown authoritarian instincts, used secret police against critics and intimidated the press.

GAZA -- Palestinians crowned their torturous struggle to be recognized as a people with their first elections yesterday, confirming Yasser Arafat as president and choosing a legislative council.Voters came on donkey carts and in Mercedes automobiles, from shepherds' fields and bankers' offices, in tribal robes and modern suits, to solemnly mark their ballots in makeshift booths.The election faltered only in East Jerusalem, where an estimated 20 percent to 30 percent of the registered voters went to polling places but found them ringed by Israeli soldiers and police taking photographs.