Yitzhak Shamir

In the Mideast hope too often turns out to be a mirage and peace plans lay scattered in the sands like the remains of strayed people and defeated tanks. But the wish always is that maybe this time things will work out.This time got a big boost Thursday when Saudi Arabia told Secretary of State Baker it would not give any more money to the Palestine Liberation Organization. The PLO got into trouble with most Arab governments when it sided with Iraq during the gulf war. But both it and its leader somehow have managed to come back from defeat and miscalculation time and again.

INSIDE Israel's Cabinet, some of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's most important ministers are talking to him about trying a kind of do-it-yourself distancing plan for Israelis and Palestinian Arabs.They suggest that what the Israelis could do themselves is to pull out their troops from several key towns in the West Bank to the outskirts -- perhaps Nablus, Hebron and Jericho. It would not be a withdrawal or surrender of territory.But it would be a step toward ending killings of Arabs and Jews by putting room between the Israeli Army and the Palestinians, giving both more breathing space.