SICK TO DEATH OF PEACE

No one believed a handshake on the White House lawn would turn Israel and the occupied territories into Eden. No one expected signatures on a document to satisfy extremists. No one thought a peace agreement would end all fear. But it was hoped that a peace agreement would bring something like peace. It has not, and as a result, Israelis and Palestinians alike are near despair over their famous accord signed in Washington less than two years ago.

A deep malaise has set in. Neither side has received what it bargained for in the agreement, which provided for a measure of Palestinian self-rule in preparation for talks beginning next year on the final status of the occupied territories. The Israelis expected relief from Palestinian fury but today find that violence is worse than before. The Palestinians wanted real control over their own lives but today find them as dominated by Israel as ever. Pollsters of both sides in recent weeks report that an increasing majority no longer support the peace accord.

The pace of terror has picked up considerably. During the nearly six years of the uprising, or intifadeh, that preceded the agreement, Palestinians killed 161 Israelis; in the 20 months since the agreement was signed, the toll is 123 dead. Most were victims of suicide bombings carried out by Muslim extremists. "You get the feeling we're collectively going over a cliff," says student Sarah Halevi. "I completely don't trust anything the Palestinians say." Seeing the killers celebrated in the streets of Gaza, and how gingerly Yasser Arafat's governing Palestinian Authority has treated them (at least until very recently), most Israelis wonder whether it is possible ever to make peace. Even among Israeli peace activists, says Clinton Bailey, a history professor at Tel Aviv University, "people are asking whether making the deal with Arafat was the right thing to do."

It is hard to find anyone who believes strongly that the limited self-rule now in effect in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho will soon be expanded to the include entire West Bank. Many people question whether that ought to happen at all. Israelis are worried about creating new safe havens for bombers. As Uri Dromi, the director of Israel's Government Press Office, says, "People see what's happening in Gaza, and they say, 'You mean to tell me you want to bring this closer to our homes?' "

A poll conducted in late April found that only 45% of Israelis still favored the peace accord. At the time it was signed, 61% favored it. Other recent polls show Israelis consistently preferring Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the opposition Likud Party, over Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Netanyahu is harshly critical of the peace agreement and has said he considers it a dead letter because of Palestinian violations. Most Palestinians -- 69% by one survey -- approved of the agreement when it was made. Now only 40% report satisfaction with it, according to a poll released last week by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center. Forty percent said the agreement was insufficient, and an additional 16% said it offered the Palestinians nothing whatsoever. "In the Gaza Strip there is no debate at all that things are worse under autonomy," says the center's director, Ghassan Khatib.