LETTERS

DEATH OF A PEACEMAKER

"A great man with an even greater dream has been taken away from us. Let us hope Yitzhak Rabin's vision of peace lives on and succeeds." YUVAL SHAMIR Los Angeles

IN WAR, PRIME MINISTER YITZHAK RABIN was a genius soldier [COVER STORIES, Nov. 13]. In diplomacy, he was an honorable peacemaker. His untimely demise is a loss not to the world alone but to all humanity. His death shows that peace is worth dying for if it will allow people to coexist in harmony, free from war. DANNY G. ABUCEJO Cerritos, California

THE ACT OF AN ISRAELI'S KILLING RABIN is comparable to an American's gunning down someone essential to the birth and development of the assassin's home nation, someone like a James Madison or Thomas Jefferson. Rabin was more than a head of state: he devoted his life to establishing the state of Israel. BRAD MISLOW Decatur, Georgia

HAVING A RELIGIOUS JEW ASSASSINATE MY Prime Minister was my worst nightmare. It's clear to me that although the holiness of the land of Israel has an important value, it certainly does not outweigh the importance of Jewish unity or of the Commandment that states "Thou shalt not kill." I am a right-wing, religious, Jewish Israeli, and though I represent only my personal views, I think they are shared by many others. I oppose the Oslo accords (which expand Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank) for a simple reason: Israel is compromising the personal security of many of its citizens and also, perhaps, military security. In return, the Palestinians are holding firm to their desire to push the Jews into the sea. I implore Acting Prime Minister Shimon Peres to honor the Bible and refuse to sign future Oslo agreements until the Palestinians change. DEBORAH WUNSCH BACH Haifa, Israel Via E-mail

RABIN'S ASSASSINATION ONLY CONFIRMS how necessary his vision of peace is: too many years of war and terrorism have begun to poison Israel's national spirit. The nation must have peace in this generation, or hatred will destroy the country from within. EILEEN JOYCE Mount Pleasant, South Carolina

PEACE AND FREEDOM FROM VIOLENCE for his people is what Rabin sought. Unfortunately, violence ended his life. To historians Rabin is now in the company of the great leaders. Future generations will remember him as such. DAVE ANAND Trumbull, Connecticut

OPPONENTS OF THE PEACE PROCESS HAVE long argued that the agreement Rabin was orchestrating with the Palestinians was an empty one. I hope that is not the case. A soldier of war and a missionary of peace, Rabin has paid the ultimate price. May Israel have true peace at last. LINDEN JACOBS New York City

THE ASSASSINATION OF THE ISRAELI Prime Minister is sad, but it is a wake-up call for all leaders. Terrorism will continue at the boiling point unless there are drastic changes. Leaders have to listen equally to everyone and not lean to the left or right. If they act in this way, individuals will not find the need to go so far as to commit such heinous crimes to get a point across. WARREN A. KANESHIRO Honolulu

IN THIS TRAGIC TIME, WHEN WE HAVE lost a great friend of peace in Rabin, we must reflect on the outcome of Jew against Jew. The peace process started by Rabin will not be reversed. This is the time for serious dialogue. We must not allow a demented killer to change the course of history. It is the moment to create a peace that will endure for ages to come. This is a time for unity. DAVID WEXLER Setauket, New York

RABIN'S ASSASSINATION WAS A VIOLENT crime that all must deplore. By the same measure, however, we must not lose our sense of fairness and responsibility. As much as we condemn Rabin's assassination, there should be no dilution of our indictment of the policies of the current Israeli government. We are not responsible for the extremist rhetoric on both sides of the political spectrum. If rhetoric of this sort provoked this deed of violence, similar rhetoric or even coolly calculated policies are equally responsible for neglecting and weakening the security of many Jews in Gaza and elsewhere. Despite Rabin's apparent sincerity in believing the Oslo accords to be Israel's long-awaited chance to establish a lasting peace with its Arab population and neighbors, we have seen not only the potential dangers of this position but also the actual losses of hundreds of lives as a result. If Rabin's passing is a true tragedy for the entire Jewish people, as indeed it is, so is the loss of every person killed as a result of Arab violence since the start of the negotiations. RABBI SHMUEL M. BUTMAN New York City

AS A PALESTINIAN WHO IS AN ADVOCATE of peace, I am very saddened by the assassination of Rabin. Peace sometimes is very costly, but as Yasser Arafat said, this is the peace of the brave. The Palestinians lost a peace partner; the Israelis lost a peacemaker; and the world lost a good leader. There are hard-liners on both sides who oppose peace, but we shall not reward them by breaking down. We must continue with the process, as Rabin would have wanted us to do. MOHAMED HASSAN Hemet, California

THE GREATEST OBSTACLE TO MIDDLE East peace may not be conflict among nations but within them. Witness the assassinations of Egypt's Anwar Sadat and now Israel's Yitzhak Rabin. Both men were internationally praised for their efforts to institute lasting peace. Both men won Nobel Peace Prizes alongside former enemies. And now both men have died at the hands of their own countrymen. DAVID R. FINE Camp Hill, Pennsylvania Via E-mail

THE ASSASSINATION OF RABIN DEMONstrates that the rise of religious fundamentalism, be it Christian, Islamic or Jewish, presents the greatest danger to world peace. MICHAEL LIPSHUTZ North Caulfield, Australia

THE COEXISTENCE OF CULTURES

SHAME ON CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER. HIS unsettling and premonitory ending to his article "Quebec and the Death of Diversity" [ESSAY, Nov. 13], "America is proceeding blithely down the path of diversity and ethnic separatism ... America's destination is the Balkans," does little except kindle a sense of despair and insecurity. Krauthammer avoids the tough questions: When and how will this happen? Can it be prevented? While he is right in noting that ethnically driven forces have the potential to tear the U.S. asunder, Krauthammer's essay is bereft of viable solutions or practical advice on what can be done. ALEX RIVERO Springfield, Virginia

TODAY'S SALEM WITCH TRIALS

FOR SEVERAL MONTHS I HAVE BEEN FOLlowing the situation in East Wenatchee, Washington, where 80 adults have been charged with sexual abuse, most of them by one 11-year-old girl [PUBLIC EYE, Nov. 13]. It seems clear that the Salem witch trials are being re-enacted in Washington State and are being carried out by one poorly qualified detective, Robert Perez, who has no corroboration from a reliable witness and no motive for the crimes claimed to have been committed. Why hasn't the fbi or the Justice Department stepped in and put a stop to this? People's civil rights are being trampled on. PAUL COOPER Point Pleasant, Pennsylvania

COMMON SENSE WOULD DICTATE THAT detective Perez is looking for something to find, rather than looking for criminals. A good analogy would be giving a four-year-old a hammer--soon a lot of things need to be hammered. Perez needs to be investigated. If it turns out that he is working within the law, then the law needs to be investigated. ANTHONY WIERSIELIS Bayonne, New Jersey

GENDER IDENTITY

I TAKE ISSUE WITH YOUR CHOICE OF nesting the article "New Evidence of a 'Gay Gene''' alongside the piece on transsexual men who feel they should have been born women [SCIENCE, Nov. 13]. While to many readers such an association of topics may seem logical, this connection merely serves to reinforce misbeliefs and stereotypes. The only common thread tying these two subjects together is that of the misunderstanding and prejudice that equate homosexuality with a man's desire to become a woman. Despite the developments covered in your report on transsexualtiy, it is considered a psychiatric disorder; homosexuality is not. Gay men are not transsexuals. By linking these two articles, you subtly provide justification for those who wish to view gays in prejudicial ways. R. GLENN HESSEL, M.D. Chicago

JEFFERSON AND THE CONSTITUTION

IT'S A SHAME THAT YOUR ITEM ON NEVADA rancher Dick Carver, "That Pocket Constitution," contained a reader's erroneous reference to Thomas Jefferson as a drafter of the Constitution [LETTERS, Nov. 13]. Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence but not the Constitution. He was Minister to France when the Constitution was written in 1787 and objected strongly to the omission of a bill of rights. Partly as a result of Jefferson's urging, the first 10 Amendments were soon added to the Constitution. GARY L. TAYLOR U.S. District Judge Santa Ana, California

ALTHOUGH JEFFERSON DID NOT DIRECTLY draft the new Constitution, your letter writer is correct in his belief that when it was being considered, Jefferson was wary of the idea of a strong central government. Initially, he was critical of the proposed Constitution because it contained no guarantees of civil rights. No doubt Jefferson's criticism influenced the turnabout on this issue of fellow Virginian James Madison, who was a principal drafter of the Constitution and who later proposed the Bill of Rights. ROGER W. SEILER South Nyack, New York

TAKING A SEAT IN HOLLYWOOD

IN YOUR STORY ON THE ROLE WOMEN ARE now playing in filmmaking, you said women have begun to occupy "decision-making seats at the big studios'' [SHOW BUSINESS, Nov. 13]. Yet a glance at the illustration for this article would lead one to believe these women have taken possession of their seats by pretending they are men. The drawing shows Sharon Stone smoking a cigar, Jodie Foster wearing a suit and tie and Alicia Silverstone with her feet up on the table in the classic male-executive pose. The illustration harks back to the tired theory that women can only succeed if they abandon what is female and mimic men. TREBBE JOHNSON Thompson, Pennsylvania

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ONWARD, CHRISTIAN WRITERS

Several readers were pleased to see that sales are going well for novels with Christian themes that exclude questionable language and gratuitous sex and violence [BOOKS, Nov. 13]. They objected to our story, however, which they felt failed to recognize many of the good qualities of the genre. ''You reveal your antisupernatural bias," commented Christian missionary Mark Lundstedt of Minneapolis, Minnesota. "Many of the things that seem so incredible in these books actually do happen in real life." Jackie Bussert of Elmhurst, Illinois, wrote, "The tone of your article suggests that Christians are simpering and prudish and that chaste is a bad word. Christians have sex in bed; they don't need it in books. And no humor? Well, your article certainly made me laugh. Why don't you just get to know us?" Kerwin B. Hatfield of Lancaster, California, was intrigued not just by the works themselves but also by the people who read and write Christian fiction. "It doesn't surprise me that wholesome stories sell, but it does puzzle me that wholesome people are willing to be titillated by Christian fantasy," he observed. "Is it possible that Christian 'messengers' like best-selling author Frank Peretti could even be more successful portraying God's world with greater realism?''