Yitzhak

JERUSALEM -- Israel's vaunted security service suffered new embarrassments yesterday from revelations that it got an advance tip of the plot to assassinate Yitzhak Rabin.The Shin Bet, or internal security service, received a warning five months ago about the plot and a description of the assassin but failed to find him, the service acknowledged in a statement yesterday.The disclosure is another blow to the Shin Bet, often described as the best in the world, and adds to the security shortcomings revealed by the assassination Nov. 4 of the prime minister.

TEL AVIV, Israel - Kathleen Kennedy Townsend ended a two-week trip to a tense and anxious Israel yesterday with a tribute to the slain Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, whom she likened to her assassinated father as a leader who inspired courage in his citizens. Defying the U.S. State Department's travel warnings to the public, Maryland's lieutenant governor came here with her husband and three of her four daughters for a family vacation followed by a series of official meetings, where she was joined by a group of Baltimore and Washington-area Jewish leaders.

JERUSALEM -- Yitzhak Rabin wanted to lead Israel as he once led the army.His successes in the military eluded him in the transition to the civilian reins of power. At 70, he wanted that victory.He was a hero of two wars and a strong minister of defense. But his one term as prime minister was cut short by what now seems a minor scandal, and he had to take a back seat in his Labor Party while it suffered a succession of election losses.This time, he was determined that his chance would not meet failure.

When artist Helene Aylon wrote and addressed a letter to "Leah Rabin, Israel," she had no idea if it would even get to her, or if the widow of the assassinated Israeli prime minister would respond.It did, and she did.Which is why they met in Owings Mills yesterday, where Rabin accepted Aylon's invitation to view one of her artworks, included in the ongoing "Too Jewish?" exhibit. Aylon was moved to dedicate her piece, a walk-through installation that comments on the Torah, to Rabin's husband after he was slain in November 1995.

Israeli Minister Yitzhak Shamir's addition of the Moledet ("Homeland") Party to his right-wing coalition government is meant to strengthen his slim Knesset majority. But it sends the wrong message to the outside world. The party and its leader, Rehavim Zeevi, favor expelling Palestinians from the West Bank and a loyalty test for Israel's Arabs. The idea is winning adherents, although it is not the Shamir government's policy. It runs counter to any hope of peace. Mr. Shamir's disavowal of his new minister-without-portfolio's view is not enough.

Q. How is safe sex like free lunch? A. It is what there is no such thing as.Bush is wiping out affirmative action. No tinpot Klansman is going to steal his thunder again.We are going to sell corn to Soviet republics and if they pay for it on time we are going to sell them even more. Some people call that foreign aid, but it is unclear which side is being aided.American Jews cherish Yitzhak Shamir's country, not his policies. There's a difference.Chesapeake conundrum: Oil or the last oyster, choose one.

Hopes for progress in Middle East peace negotiations were marginally strengthened by the party leadership struggles in Israel, preparing for the June 23 election. Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who returns to the leadership of the opposition Labor Party, favors the negotiations and the concept of swapping land for peace. He has said that, in power, he would put a stop to settlement-building on the West Bank.Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who remains at the helm of Likud, is his old seemingly intransigent self.

Israel's voters went beyond predictions in throwing out the Likud government and putting Labor in charge. In fact, with some 35 percent of the vote and 45 of the 120 Knesset seats, Yitzhak Rabin's Labor Party cannot have everything its own way. It must make a coalition, first with the Meretz bloc which is more dovish than Labor, then with at least one other small party. But the purpose of the voters is clear: to negotiate more flexibly and earnestly for peace with the Palestinians and Arab states than outgoing Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was willing to do.General Rabin is no pushover.

JERUSALEM -- In a direct challenge to Bush administration calls for his government to stop building settlements in occupied lands, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir declared defiantly yesterday that "this construction will continue, and no power in the world will prevent this construction."His finance minister went a step further, saying that if the United States insisted on a settlement freeze as the price for $10 billion in U.S. loan guarantees that Israel says it needs to absorb new Jewish immigrants, he would rather forgo the assistance, no matter what the economic consequences.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush and Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir of Israel have set their first meeting since the Persian Gulf crisis began, the White House announced yesterday.The talks are slated for Dec. 11, when Mr. Shamir is making a private visit to Washington.Throughout the tense Gulf crisis, Mr. Bush has kept in touch, often through telephone conversations, with numerous leaders. But he has not spoken directly with Mr. Shamir.At their talks next month, Mr. Bush is expected to seek assurances that the Israelis will not use $400 million in new U.S. housing loan guarantees for settlements in occupied East Jerusalem.

Noa Ben Artzi-Pelossof steps onto the stage at the Gordon Center in Owings Mills wearing a pair of silver-heeled, red-white-and-black striped boots. The ankle-high, Parisian footwear complements her black leather jacket, satin blouse and pants. A lock of red hair, inherited from her beloved grandpa, Yitzhak Rabin, falls in front of her face as she talks about the slain Israeli prime minister.She is an admiring granddaughter remembering a man others knew only as a soldier-statesman and a peacemaker.

JERUSALEM -- Israel's vaunted security service suffered new embarrassments yesterday from revelations that it got an advance tip of the plot to assassinate Yitzhak Rabin.The Shin Bet, or internal security service, received a warning five months ago about the plot and a description of the assassin but failed to find him, the service acknowledged in a statement yesterday.The disclosure is another blow to the Shin Bet, often described as the best in the world, and adds to the security shortcomings revealed by the assassination Nov. 4 of the prime minister.

JERUSALEM -- A grieving Israel eased back on track toward peace yesterday, one day after burying the prime minister who set the process in motion.But the same divisive anger that led an assassin to kill Yitzhak Rabin was already beginning to drown out initial calls for national unity.Although the nation will officially be in mourning for the rest of the week, the government yesterday resumed its redeployment of occupying troops away from Arab towns on the West Bank, in accordance with the latest agreement with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

TEL AVIV, Israel -- Last week, back when the world was still simple, 17-year-old Shoul Zoalis confronted the ancient problems his young nation with a laugh and a song, admittedly "getting a little bit stupid" from time to time.He and his friends were for peace, and so was their prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, so they gathered by the tens of thousands on Saturday to celebrate in Kings of Israel Square. Before the night was over Mr. Rabin was assassinated by one of his countrymen, and the world according to Shoul Zoalis changed forever.

TEL AVIV, Israel -- Yigal Amir told an Israeli court yesterday that he had murdered Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin because, "the minute a Jew gives his people and land over to the enemy one must kill him."Also, authorities said that Mr. Amir's 27-year-old brother, Hagai, may have provided the gun and manufactured a custom-made "dum-dum" bullet that would inflict a more severe injury than a regular round."He [Hagai Amir] took a bullet, drilled a hole in it and turned it into a lethal bullet which causes far more damage than a regular one," a police officer told Magistrate Court Judge Dan Arbel yesterday, in describing the way the assassin's brother built a hollow-body bullet, which expands on impact, making it especially destructive.

Baltimore's Jewish community gathered last night at several vigils to reflect, pray and denounce the violence that took the life of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was buried earlier in the day.At the Chizuk Amuno Congregation in Baltimore County, a night that was to be a fund-raiser for the Associated Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore was turned into "A Gathering for Peace." Actor Richard Dreyfuss, who was to be the keynote speaker for the fund-raiser, reflected on Mr. Rabin, whom he had met on several occasions.

WASHINGTON -- President Bush and Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir of Israel have set their first meeting since the Persian Gulf crisis began, the White House announced yesterday.The talks are slated for Dec. 11, when Mr. Shamir is making a private visit to Washington.Throughout the tense Gulf crisis, Mr. Bush has kept in touch, often through telephone conversations, with numerous leaders. But he has not spoken directly with Mr. Shamir.At their talks next month, Mr. Bush is expected to seek assurances that the Israelis will not use $400 million in new U.S. housing loan guarantees for settlements in occupied East Jerusalem.

JERUSALEM -- In a vote that may affect the shape of Israel's next government and the course of Middle East peace talks, Yitzhak Rabin defeated Shimon Peres early today for the leadership of the opposition Labor Party in national elections early this summer.But in a four-candidate party primary, the first such vote ever conducted in Israel, it was not clear how solidly Mr. Rabin held the 40 percent share he needs to avoid a runoff next Wednesday against Mr. Peres, the incumbent leader and his political rival for nearly two decades.

JERUSALEM -- Yitzhak Rabin's last breakthrough for peace came at his burial yesterday, when world leaders flocked to Israel as they never have before. Representatives of six Arab countries along with leaders fromer of Zionism, and their presence there acknowledged the changed stature of the Israel Mr. Rabin helped shape.A siren raised its voice in a single, insistent note as Mr. Rabin's plain pine coffin arrived at the cemetery. The mournful wail echoed over the Jerusalem Peace Forest, and was repeated throughout Israel as the country stood still in mourning.

PITY THE PEACEMAKERS, for they shall incur the wrath, the hatred, the violence, even the murder in the hearts of fanatics.Twice in fourteen years, Middle East enmities have claimed the lives of warrior leaders who dared to tread the minefields of reconciliation. The first to go was Egypt's Anwar Sadat, gunned down by Islamic fundamentalists who loathed his Camp David rapprochement with Israel. Now Israel's Yitzhak Rabin lies dead, the victim of a Jewish extremist who proclaimed, without regret, that he was carrying out God's will.