Peace

The assassination of Muhammad Abu Shaaban, a prominent PLO leader in Gaza, may signal increased violence within that organization on the road to peace in the Middle East. To me it marks the loss of a friend of peace, and just a friend. I met Muhammad Abu Shaaban several years ago when the Israeli Army granted me permission to interview Arab lawyers imprisoned in Gaza for anti-Israeli activity. I had long been the director of a joint summer law program in Israel of Temple and Tel Aviv Universities and active in human rights throughout the world.

Never say never. The many drawbacks inherent in demonizing one's enemies include prolonging war, violence, terrorism, prejudice - plus a certain awkwardness when an agreement finally comes. And the soon-to-be-formalized agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization certainly will include recognition of one-time Beelzebub Yasser Arafat as a legitimate leader of the Palestinian people (as well as recognition that there are, in fact, Palestinian people - something many Israelis had refused to acknowledge)

Two peace doves, a world flag, a giant balloon and scores of costumed children were but a few of the symbols used yesterday to mark the National Day of Peace at the International Village Fair. It all began with a song. "One heart. One mind. One world. Living a vision," sang two folk singers as they kicked off the fair from the stage of the Constitution Pavilion, where flags of the world waved above their heads in the evening breeze. The day was designated by Congress in 1985 as a time for Americans to reflect on peace.

The sign on Michael Berg's front lawn says, "War is NOT the answer!" For him, peace is the answer - and not just the answer to the current world situation. It has become one of the answers to the most difficult question facing his family today: how to cope with Nick Berg's gruesome murder. "I think everybody has a very different way of moving on," he said yesterday. "I want to . . . try and send my message, which is that peace is possible. " Berg's son Nick, of West Chester, had traveled to Iraq to work on communications towers when he disappeared April 10. His body was discovered near a Baghdad highway overpass on May 8. A group with links to al-Qaeda later released a video of five hooded men reading a statement and then beheading Berg.

An ambitious epic set in Central Asia and spanning decades, Yermek Shinarbaev's Revenge unfolds in seven novellalike sections. The film, beautifully photographed and rife with symbolism (even the presence of a hedgehog and a rat is laden with meaning), revolves around the mutilation of a Korean schoolgirl. We see how this act, committed in an instant of rage, haunts the murderer and the victim's father and brother - who pledges revenge at his father's deathbed. The story, based on a fate-filled novel by Russian-Korean writer Anatoly Kim, has a certain Zen lyricism to it. Shinarbaev, whose two previous films (Sister Lucie and To Leave the Forest)

It took an hour, 12 spools of string and a lot of cooperation. But the eight sixth-grade boys had their kite soaring past the Willow Dale Elementary School flagpole, past a housing development across the street, almost to York Road, nearly a mile away. It was a mere speck in the sky. "I hope planes don't crash into it," Dan Portnoi, 11, said with a grin. Willow Dale Principal Michael W. Webb would have been proud of the boys' accomplishment - if he had been able to tear himself away from the pandemonium on the playground to take a look.

Before the Flyers' recent Western trip, center Jeremy Roenick and coach Ken Hitchcock cleared the air about the perception that perhaps one of them wasn't on board with the other this season. Hitchcock "really wants to challenge me this year in a lot of different ways, and it's not a points thing," Roenick said yesterday. "It's more of a leadership thing - how I am going to play and how I will lead these guys system-wise," Roenick added. "He wants me to be the best at it. I think he knows when to push buttons and when not. I think everything he does with me is to keep me motivated and on edge.

The careful refrain we have been hearing from our leaders since Sept. 11 is that the West is not at war with Islam. However, a look at Islam itself shows that it has been in a state of almost continual war since its founding 1,400 years ago: war with its neighbors and among its own factions, sects and tribes.? The core belief structure preaches superiority. No wonder peace and co-existence is virtually unacceptable - they have been engaged in a holy war against the rest of the world until it accedes.

Everything about Erella Pines projects strength. She watches a questioner like a hawk, finding contradictions and offering precise answers. There is strength in her words and in her stand: A Jew, she took the unusual step of approaching an Arab woman and telling her she wanted to be her friend. Two months ago Pines asked a friend if she knew of any Arab women Pines could meet. The friend told her about Tagaree Shbeda, who lived close by in Tira. Pines phoned Shbeda and arranged to meet in a gas station on the outskirts of this Arab village about 20 miles north of Tel Aviv.

It was called the "Voice of Peace. " For 20 years, the radio station broadcast popular music and appeals for Mideast harmony from "somewhere in the Mediterranean" - actually, from a 1940s ship anchored in international waters just outside Israel's jurisdiction. And on Friday, 2 1/2 weeks after the historic peace accord between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, it shut down. Abie Nathan, 66, the former Israeli fighter pilot who owned and launched the peace ship in 1973, signed off just before 2 p.m., breaking into the song "We Shall Overcome" and concluding with the parting words: "Thank you all - Shalom - Love and peace to everyone.