The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

MARGARET WARNER: Good evening. I'm Margaret Warner. Jim Lehrer is on vacation. On the NewsHour tonight, an update on Russia's sad and angry reaction to the submarine catastrophe; a look at what's behind the ferocious fires in the West; an Elizabeth Farnsworth report from the old city of Jerusalem-- a sticking point on the road to MidEast peace; and Spencer Michels and Gwen Ifill look at the renewed debate over bilingual education in California. It all follows our summary of the news this Wednesday.

NEWS SUMMARY

MARGARET WARNER: Attorney General Reno said today she's decided not to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Vice President Gore's truthfulness about his 1996 fund-raising. The chief of Reno's campaign task force had urged her to name an outside counsel to determine whether Gore lied last April when he told Justice Department lawyers, among other things, he didn't consider an April, 1996 Buddhist Temple event in California to be a fund-raiser. Reno said today the interview transcript wouldn't support a prosecution.

JANET RENO: The transcript reflects neither false statements nor perjury -- each of which requires proof of a willfully false statement about a material matter. Rather, the transcript reflects disagreements about labels. I have concluded that there is no reasonable possibility that further investigation could develop evidence that would support the filing of charges for making a willful false statement. The task force will, of course, continue its going investigation into illegal fund-raising activity and will be free to pursue all avenues of investigation wherever they may lead.

MARGARET WARNER: Reno defended the timing of her decision, saying, "I don't do things based on politics." A Gore spokesman said he was pleased with today's announcement. In Austin today, Republican George W. Bush issued a statement saying it was clear his Democratic opponent engaged in questionable fund-raising practices. The statement went on to say: "The best way to put all these scandals and investigations behind us is to elect someone new." Vice President Gore and Senator Lieberman campaigned in Florida today. Speaking to senior citizens near Fort Lauderdale, Gore called for a $3,000 tax credit to help families cope with the costs of providing long-term care.

AL GORE: It's not so much to ask for these Americans who are putting in 24-hour days seven days a week, who are helping because of the fullness of the love in their hearts and who are making sacrifices that are almost impossible to imagine. It's little enough, but it's quite a bit beyond what is on the other side, which amounts to only a few hundred dollars in the form of an additional exemption.

MARGARET WARNER: Responding to Gore's proposal, a spokesman for Governor Bush said, "the Clinton-Gore administration has talked about making long-term care more affordable for more than six years and has failed to get it done." Bush was in Austin today, and had no campaign events. The Clinton administration released guidelines that for the first time will allow federally-funded research on human embryo cells. These stem cells can be developed into other kinds of cells. And scientists hope to use them to generate tissue for transplants and to treat diseases like diabetes, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Anti-abortion groups oppose such research because the cells come from fertilized human eggs. President Clinton said the research would be carefully monitored.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: The protections are there. The most rigorous scientific standards have been met. But if you look just in the last couple weeks, you've had story after story after story of the potential of stem cell research to deal with these health challenges, and I think we cannot walk away from the potential to save lives and improve live, to help people literally get up and walk, to do all kinds of things we could never have imagined, as long as we meet rigorous ethical standards, and I'm convinced and Secretary Shalala is convinced that that has been done.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Clinton also said he looks forward to meeting with Mexican President-elect Vicente Fox tomorrow in Washington. We'll have an interview with the president-elect tomorrow night. A Gulf Air jet with 143 people on board crashed into the Persian Gulf today. The Airbus A-320 was approaching the Bahrain Airport on a flight from Cairo. There were conflicting reports on what caused it to plunge into the sea, but airport officials said the plane made two attempts to land before crashing. A Pentagon official said the U.S. Navy was aiding the search and rescue effort. Dozens of bodies have been recovered. No survivors have yet been found. In Russia, President Putin spoke publicly for the first time today about the "Kursk" submarine disaster. He told Russian television he felt responsible for the tragedy, and said he would not assign further blame until the facts were in. He rejected resignation letters from his defense minister and navy chief. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. Also coming, the West's ferocious fires, Jerusalem and Middle East peace, and bilingual education.

UPDATE - CATASTROPHE

MARGARET WARNER: Today was a national day of mourning in Russia. Gaby Rado of Independent Television News reports.

GABY RADO, ITN: Russians have been mourning the death of the 118 submariners, men who many believe were betrayed by their own high command and political leaders. This evening the nation heard the first words from President Putin since the loss of the whole crew was confirmed.

PRESIDENT PUTIN: (Translated) In spite of the fact that I have sat in the Kremlin office for just 100 days, I feel responsible and guilty for this tragedy.

GABY RADO: The president, who has in fact been leader of Russia since January, revealed he refused to accept the resignations of his defense minister and two top admirals, saying he first wanted an investigation carried out. Last night he had a six-hour- long meeting with the relatives of the lost crew. Russian TV, given sole access, did not broadcast any of the exchanges between the anguished families and their leader. But in video obtained of a weekend meeting between relatives and the deputy prime minister, proof of how the authorities dealt with one angry mother: A woman official behind her is caught brandishing a syringe, which she apparently applies through the woman's clothes. Today there was much more anger.

WOMAN: (Translated) I believe that our authorities showed that they consider ordinary people simply worthless. From now on, no mother will allow her son to serve in the Russian armed forces. We don't bring up our sons so they can be killed.

GABY RADO: Anastia Kubrikov on the left is one of several women mourning their grandsons in the region of Kursk western Russia, after which the submarine was named. 21-year-old Roman Kubrikov was the youngest crew member to die on the submarine. His grandmother says she hasn't slept since she heard of the accident. She still can't believe he won't be coming back. All over Russia, flags have been lowered to half-mast. The disaster isn't just seen as a tragedy for 118 families or a blow for the navy, but a source of national shame. Even in places far from the sea, such as Riazen, 100 miles south of Moscow, where they have monuments to the navy's past achievements, people have paid tribute. The world today had its first glimpse of the divers who did manage to get into the "Kursk." The first down was in fact British, not Norwegian, and the team will have to stay in a decompression chamber for two more days. The relatives of the lost submariners will be further dismayed when they hear the latest estimates of when they'll be able to bury their sons and brothers and husbands. The Norwegian diving team, which will be going down to the submarine "Kursk" within the next ten days, say the actual raising of the vessel and retrieval of the bodies cannot take place before next summer.

FOCUS - MANAGING DISASTER

MARGARET WARNER: Now we look at the fires ravaging the West. 1.4 million acres are burning across the western United States today, the most land on fire at any one time in this country since 1910. Federal officials have identified 77 major fires burning in nine western states. The largest blaze has already consumed 170,000 acres in the Salmon-Challis National Forest in Central Idaho. Though some wildfires have been contained, new ones are continually being ignited, often by lightning. All told this season, the voracious fires have devoured 5.8 million acres, destroyed hundreds of buildings, and killed eight firefighters. In one of the hardest-hit areas, Montana's Bitterroot National Forest, firefighters rescued a black bear cub on Sunday, but residents were continuing to clear out of the adjoining valley.

RESIDENT: We're evacuating. We were told to get our livestock out. We have already taken them to the fairgrounds and we are packing away.

RESIDENT: They haven't been able to stop it. It looks like to me it's going to take my home and my barn and the whole works.

MARGARET WARNER: Preliminary evacuations are also underway in California, where a major wildfire rages in the Plumas National Forest north of Sacramento. And in Oregon, authorities enlisted members of the National Guard to help battle the flames. Firefighters are stretched so thin, that more than 2,000 active-duty army and marine troops have been deployed to help in Idaho and Montana. But the fires are likely to grow even worse in the next month, says Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt.

BRUCE BABBITT: We've got to accept one fact, and that is infrastructure and fire fighting is in place for the next 30 days. And our job is to assist and help them and listen very carefully to what they say they need.

MARGARET WARNER: And Babbitt warned that resources were so overextended that realistically, little could be done to stop the fires' progress. Critics, including the logging industry and the governor of Montana, say Babbitt and the Clinton administration are partly to blame. Logging in national forests has declined by nearly 75% in the Clinton years, and critics say the dense forests have fueled the explosive fires. But environmentalists note that the biggest fires in Montana and Idaho this year are burning not in wilderness areas, where logging is banned, but in areas that have been logged in the past.The administration has been reassessing its approach to fire management, however. For 90 years, forest managers have tried to stamp out virtually every wildfire on public lands-- even low- intensity fires that would otherwise clean out small trees and underbrush. In the latest sign of that reassessment, the "New York Times" reported yesterday that the administration is considering a proposal to mechanically remove the smaller trees and underbrush from the national forests, while leaving the largest, most fire resistant trees behind. That kind of experimental thinning-out program is currently underway in the Ponderosa pine forests outside Flagstaff, Arizona. The draft proposal would extend that program over 15 years to the 40 million acres of national forest now deemed at high risk of catastrophic fire.

MARGARET WARNER: And for more, we're joined by three experts in forest management and wildfires. Stephen Fitzgerald is an associate professor in the College of Forestry at Oregon State University. Thomas Power is chairman of the Economics Department and Professor of Resource Economics at the University of Montana. And Scott Stephens is an assistant professor of fire sciences in the College of Natural Resources at the University of California at Berkeley.

MARGARET WARNER: Good evening, gentlemen. Welcome.

SCOTT STEPHENS, University of California, Berkeley: Hello.

MARGARET WARNER: Scott Stephens, when Secretary Babbitt says at this point really the fires are uncontrollable, their progress cannot be stopped, is he right, and if so, why?

SCOTT STEPHENS: Well, if you look at the conditions that the fires are burning in today, you have tremendous problems because you have extreme fire behavior. You have a very low moisture contents and fuel, and those conditions, fires can spot in front of themselves half a mile, three-fourths of a mile. And they're very hazardous. It really is true, in those type of conditions, until the weather changes, there's really not going to be any effectiveness in suppressing them.

MARGARET WARNER: And what do you mean fires can spot themselves, ahead of themselves?

SCOTT STEPHENS: Well, embers are actually -- burning embers are lofted in front of the flaming area, and they can actually come down in front of the fire, to the side of the fire, and simultaneously, dozens of small fires can occur in front of the flaming mass. It makes it very dangerous to fight them. They're very erratic in their behavior. In that kind of condition, you wouldn't want to put people's lives in jeopardy.

MARGARET WARNER: Stephen Fitzgerald, what would you add to that? What is it about fighting fires in forests than if you had ten city blocks up in flames?

STEPHEN FITZGERALD, Oregon State University: Well, the big thing is that as your fire takes off and moves to the crown, it actually races through there. And the intensity is such that depending on the topography and the embers that were just mentioned, how that feeds back in the fire, it becomes very difficult to control that. And the fire can often make a run and consume tens of thousands of acres in a given run.

MARGARET WARNER: So Thomas Power, explain to us how we got to this point. Why are the fires so horrific this year?

THOMAS POWER, University of Montana: Well, I think the primary explanation simply has to do, as my colleagues have already explained, the unusually dry, hot conditions. This is an unusual year. It's not just that the forests are in unusual condition because of the way they've been managed. This is an unusual year in terms of the weather that simply has created the potential for explosive wildfire. Any human accident or misjudgment, and a good numbers of the fires in the Bitterroot Valley just south of us here in Missoula, for instance, have been human-caused. Any lightning, simply gets fires going. And in a very unpredictable way, they can take off. So it's natural conditions, primarily that explain this year.

MARGARET WARNER: Scott Stephens, then put the forest management piece into the picture, though, as well. In other words, why is it a situation that if you have a really hot, dry summer, it's this horrific a result?

SCOTT STEPHENS: As we just heard, we've had fire suppression policies in this country for last 80, 90 years. Suppress fire, and we know ecosystems are dynamic, are constantly creating fuels, fuels are building up because most of these areas don't get much summer precipitation. So you don't have much decomposition. Then when you get a fire in these types of condition, high fuel loads, high fuel continuity, tremendous resources are lost and lives are put in jeopardy. So it's really past management practices that we have addressed in this country, and we're making some progress to go against. But to get this turned around it is going to take decades.

MARGARET WARNER: Stephen Fitzgerald, what caused this policy, this I guess epitomized by Smoky the Bear where every fire, no matter how small, was the enemy and had to be stamped out?

STEPHEN FITZGERALD: Well, if you go back to 1910, it's kind of an ironic situation here in Montana, because the large fires from 1910, which consumed hundreds of thousands of acres during that time, we began to take a look, because of all the trees and the sources consumed in those fires, that we began to talk on an attitude that fire was harmful, and so we began these policies of putting fires out, fire suppression, as we heard earlier. And that has continued. And then with the advent of Smoky the Bear, that continued in a fairly zealous way -- all with good intentions. However, we've seen a dramatic change in the makeup and structure of fuel, of both dead fuel and living trees. You have to consider them as fuel. And so now we take a look at how fires behave, and they're much more erratic, much more intense, and often much larger in stands that historically did not have this kind of behavior.

MARGARET WARNER: And is that, in part, because now the stands are much more dense and the trees are smaller and - let's able to resist it?

STEPHEN FITZGERALD: Yeah. What you have is a couple of things. One is a change in the composition of the forest. What you have are trees that have seeded in over time underneath the large old growth trees, and you have basically several canopy layers of tees, often we call that a fire ladder. And when that occurs, the fire can move from the ground or the under story quite effectively up into the upper or canopy and then move through the stands, move up the slope, and consume trees that historically would have survived a much lower severity fire.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Thomas Power, now help us understand how logging fits into this. We hear the logging industry saying the problem is it hasn't been logged enough. The environmentalists say, hey, all the big fires are in areas that were logged once. Who's right -- or are both right?

THOMAS POWER: Well, yeah, don't think that you can really engage in very much finger-pointing here. I think the references that have already been made to the 1910 fire, which certainly predated current management practices and predated fire suppression, points out the potential that these forests have for large-scale, catastrophic fire, almost no matter what we do. So we have to begin with a certain amount of humility went we look at that. In addition, whether timber harvests actually reduce fuel loads depends on how that harvest is carried out. It very important to realize that what's optimal from the point of view of fire control is not the same as what's optimal from the point of view of forest health, since we know that fires are part of forest health. And what optimal for those two isn't necessarily optimal for timber harvests. So that there are some very difficult choices and tradeoffs we have to make. Timber harvests carried out correctly in some situations certainly can help reduce fuel loads. Carried out in other settings, they certainly have been the source of the fuels, which have helped maintain rapid growth of fires here in Western Montana. A good number of those fires are burning in areas that were roaded and logged in the past. So it's clear that logging will not solve the problem. It's also clear that we have a problem.

MARGARET WARNER: So Scott Stephens, what are the alternatives now if we don't want to have a repeat of this every hot or dry summer?

SCOTT STEPHENS: Well, I think it has to be a comprehensive program, as the other two speakers have talked about. I do think you have to look at what you are trying to manage our forests for -- the federal forest. You have to look at the desired future conditions and the range of the conditions that we're trying to manage for. Once you do that, then you ask yourself, given the initial conditions of our forests, which are very diverse, which methods should be applied to reach the desired condition, and once you get there, how do you maintain them? I think it has to be a combination of prescribed fire treatment, mechanical thinning treatments, and possibly mechanical fire treatments. It is going to take a whole suite of outcomes to get these forests in a trajectory where we can get them me fire safe and more fire prone.

MARGARET WARNER: The prescribed burn is where actually the Forest Service - they set a fire but they try to control it, to thin it out, whereas, the mechanical is something like the Flagstaff experiment, where they go in and without fire, clear out the underbrush.

SCOTT STEPHENS: That's exactly right. You're trying to mechanically -- structurally you're trying to change the forest structure. We heard about some of the many small trees in the under story. You're trying to remove those mechanically and trying to produce a system that will incorporate fire at lower intensities. But there's some controversy involved with that because we don't have an awful lot of research that tells us if we do it mechanically versus a fire what things might we lose or what things might we gain. But, sill, there's enough information out there right now that I believe we should move forward because we have such a glaring problem on 40 million acres of ground.

MARGARET WARNER: Scott Fitzgerald, what is your assessment of the different alternatives and particularly this idea of the mechanical clearing?

STEPHEN FITZGERALD: Well, I agree actually with that. We have some experiments right now where one of the kinds of stands that everyone is concerned about is old growth, and we conducted experiments...

MARGARET WARNER: These are the big old trees.

STEPHEN FITZGERALD: Big old trees that over the last hundred years have been crowded. And what we find is those large trees, the very ones we want to keep around for quite a while, are under stress. We find that the mortality rates are higher. And what we've done is removed much of the under story trees, the mid story trees that have crowded around a lot of these fire-resistant Ponderosa Pines. And what we're finding, those trees are pretty happy once that material is removed. It's kind of like having a lot of youngsters taking away a lot of the food or nutrients and water. Water is really critical on a lot of these sites because these are dry, interior forest sites. And so if you're a large tree, you need a lot of water, a lot of nutrients, and if you have a lot of competition, oftentimes what we find are bark beetles find these trees very effectively and kill them, and so oftentimes with old growth, it's an important issue, but sometimes we might love them to death by not doing the right thing. And as Mr. Power mentioned, it has to be the right kind of timber harvesting to maintain those kinds of trees.

MARGARET WARNER: So, Tom Power, back to this or on with this sort of mechanical clearing, which the administration, I think, I gather, is considering trying to take national, do you think that's the big answer?

TOM POWER: I really don't. The cost of it is going to be incredible but what has to be faced is the fact that this sort of mechanical treatment, if it's guided primarily by concerns with forest health, is going to be removing brush; it's going to be removing very small trees, it's going to cost a lot of money and produce no merchantable products.

MARGARET WARNER: You mean... let me just interrupt you...you mean because the trees that are being taken out just really aren't commercially viable, in other wards, it is sort of not worth it?

TOM POWER: Exactly. And so either it's going to cost a lot of money that taxpayers are going to have provide and the Forest Service is talking about spending close to $1 billion

a year over a very long period of time. It just seems unlikely that we can treat 40 million acres in that way. The cost will just be outrageous. In order to cope with that cost, what's usually suggested is that some commercial timber harvest take place at the same time. Then one begins compromising both on the forest health issues, on the fire prevention issues, by mixing up... mixing into the equation what's best for the profitability of commercial timber harvest. And it's at that point that it's not clear, since we're in a confused way trying to pursue several objectives at the same time and doing none of them very well, it's not clear that we'll accomplish any of them. I think we need a very focused effort, first in those areas where human safety and human structures are at risk, and that's where the Forest Service is putting their primary resources right now. I think that that sort of mechanical brush removal and thinning is perfectly appropriate along the urban forest interface.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Power, thank you. I'm sorry. I'm going to have to cut you off, but thanks so much. And thank you all three.

FOCUS - DIVIDED CITY

MARGARET WARNER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight: Jerusalem and Middle East peace and bilingual education in California.

Last month's Middle East peace negotiations at Camp David foundered over a few key issues. Elizabeth Farnsworth has a two-part look at them, beginning tonight with Jerusalem.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: From the Mount of Olives, the Old City of Jerusalem shines in the morning light. The city is vibrant, alluring. Muslims, Jews and Christians go about their day's work on walkways in continual use for thousands of years. But the ground is shifting underneath. The issue of sovereignty over Jerusalem was on the negotiating table for the first time publicly at Camp David last month, and some say nothing here will ever be the same again. Israel annexed the eastern part of the city after the 1967 Six-Day War. The issue now is how much of the city Palestinians will get-- if any-- as part of their new state.

MERON BENVENISTI: This is supposed to be handed over to the Palestinians, which means that this is going to be a Jewish sovereign area and that is going to be a Palestinian sovereign area. And the question is who is going to maintain the traffic lights.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Historian Meron Benvenisti is a former deputy mayor of Jerusalem. He has long advocated a negotiated peace, but favors small steps to reconciliation and says what's happening now is deeply destabilizing.

MERON BENVENISTI: Just because there cannot be an ultimate solution for Jerusalem. It is impossible to achieve, and once you start dealing with arrangements that are aimed at resolving the conflict, you tend to open a can of worms, open a genie... a bottle, and then the genie comes out. This is exactly what's happening now.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The Jerusalem issue has provoked demonstrations and helped fracture the governing coalition of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. These protesters - many of them from the opposition Likud Party - marched around the periphery of the old city earlier this month. Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert, of the Likud Party, pleaded their cause - first in Hebrew, then in English.

MAYOR EHUD OLMERT: For thousands of years the Jewish people prayed for this place. For thousands of years we dreamt that one day we will come back to the holiest of all places for the Jewish people.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: That place is the Western, or Wailing, Wall, and on this night thousands of Jews prayed there. It was the eve of the annual day of mourning for the destruction of two great Jewish temples, including the one built by Solomon 3,000 years ago. The stones of this wall are all that remain of the Mount on which the temples stood.

MAYOR EHUD OLMERT: While we are ready to share, we are determined that the Temple Mount will never be handed over to become the sovereign place of any other nation but the Jewish nation.

ADNAN HUSSEINI: We love Jerusalem. We love Palestine. We can't live without Jerusalem.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Earlier the same day on the temple Mount -- or Haram Al Shariff in Arabic, Adnan Husseini, administrator of the Islamic Holy Sites here, stated the Muslim claim to this place.

ADNAN HUSSEINI: This is the heart of the world. This is El Aksa mosque. This is the most holy place, with Mecca and Medina, in Islam; and it is God's will that Muslims will be here since 1,400 years, and this is a declaration from God.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: On this day, Husseini was trying to defuse tensions he said were caused partly by the Camp David talks.

ADNAN HUSSEINI: We can say that there is more tension, and there is more movement of the settlers around the area.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: He was talking about member of a small Jewish sect which sends people onto the mount frequently -- for religious reasons, they say -- for provocation, says Husseini. Israel has political sovereignty here -- but Palestinian Muslims have administrative and religious control over this site. El Aksa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are holy to Muslims because they believe Mohammed began his ascent to heaven here. And Adnan Husseini -- like most Palestinians we spoke to -- said Muslims must have not only religious sovereignty over this place but political sovereignty too. That is the nub of the issue that broke up Camp David last month. Both sides insisted on sovereignty over this small plot of land. Israeli archeologist Jon Seligman explained:

JON SELIGMAN: The problem is the proximity of the all the different sites together. I mean, if you look behind my shoulder, you can see two of the major sites of the issue-which is the Wailing Wall -- the Western Wall -- which of course is a major sacred site in Judaism, and just behind it you can see the major site to Islam, which is the Dome of the Rock and the El Aksa mosque, so these two sites are not some distance apart, but they are right next to each other. In fact, they're not differentiated at all, they're exactly the same site.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Under one plan proposed at Camp David by President Clinton and widely publicized in newspapers here, the Israelis would retain what was called "soft" sovereignty over the Mount while Palestinians would have "custodial" sovereignty. The rest of the Old City is divided into four quarters; and under this plan, the Muslim and Christian quarters would be Palestinian; the Jewish and Armenian Israeli. Beyond the walls of the Old City, East Jerusalem's inner neighborhoods, while remaining Israeli, would come under what was called Palestinian "functional autonomy;" while outer neighborhoods like these would become part of the new state of Palestine. Under this proposal, the capital might be just beyond the city limits here -- in Abu Dis -- where a Palestinian Legislative Council was already under construction. A special road or bridge would connect Abu Dis with the Holy sites of the Old City -- just visible on top of the hill. None of this plan was formally accepted by either side; but it gives a sense of what's being discussed -- even now. Barak Cabinet Minister Yuli Tamir, who is close to the negotiations, explained.

YULI TAMIR: what we're trying to do is to reexamine the notion of sovereignty and to try to sort of divide sovereignty -- not to look at it as a holistic term that one side has sovereignty therefore the other side has none. And we're trying to work out a situation whereby shared sovereignty is not territorially shared but functionally shared.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Would it be possible to solve the problem by giving you religious sovereignty and Israel political sovereignty over this area?

ADNAN HUSSEINI: Well, I have religious sovereignty, but I am suffering. I don't have any freedom of this sovereignty. So, I believe that without the political sovereignty, I can never has this freedom sovereignty of religion. It is exactly the same situation of occupation though in another way -- in a peaceful way instead of occupation and power. so this can never be accepted.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Rabbi Schmul Rabinovich, who was appointed by the Barak government to oversee the Jewish Holy places in Jerusalem, is also coping with the effects of Camp David. An Ultra-Orthodox Jew, he worries too much will be given to the Palestinians.

RABBI SCHMUL RABINOVICH: (speaking through interpreter) No doubt it concerns me. We remember that 33 years ago--until 1967--the Jewish people could not approach the Western Wall. It was under Arab rule, and Jews were prevented from going to the holiest place. Since 1967, the Jews have allowed every Muslim, every Christian, every man to get to their holy sites and pray their own way. I am truly a person who advocates peace, and I am willing to give up a lot for the sake of peace. This is not just lip service. I honestly think that it's crucial that there will be no more bloodshed. But I would like to stress how important Jerusalem is to us and how we cannot be separated from it because it is truly our life source. I don't know what the solutions are, but I'll be very surprised if they find a solution to Jerusalem.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Lutheran Bishop Munib Younan, a Palestinian who often speaks for the Christian clergy here, is more hopeful. On his walks through the streets of the Old City, he says, he finds that underneath the rhetoric of both sides, acceptance of change is growing.

BISHOP MUNIB YOUNAN: You know, it's a matter of awareness building, and it's a matter of maturity.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Of awareness building?

BISHOP MUNIB YOUNAN: Yes. And maturity, and a matter, you know, of time. You know, ten years ago, had I told the Americans that Mr. Arafat will meet Mr. Rabin, they would have said that I'm a freak. Now if we ask the Israeli public on the issue of a Palestinian state, I think you'll find most of them are convinced that the Palestinians should have their own state. You see, on the issue of Jerusalem, I mean, it's the same thing. It's a matter of, you know, awareness building.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: In random interviews in the Jewish quarter, some Israelis reflected this new awareness. Yaron Shrem owns an art gallery.

YARON SHREAM: It's destiny that these two people-- Arabs and Jews-- they have to live together. That's destiny. So we have to just find a way to live together.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: David Bar Levav, the son of Holocaust survivors, has owned this antiquities shop in the Jewish quarter for 30 years.

DAVID BAR LEVAV: I would want that the whole of Jerusalem will be under Israeli rule and then the Arabs becoming citizens of Jerusalem, and an open city for everyone as it is actually now, but I know that the reality puts some boundaries to what you can wish.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Are you willing to accept something less than that?

DAVID BAR LEVAV: I guess that we will have to accept something less than that.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Among Palestinians in the marketplace, the mood was more somber. This man said negotiations over the years had not improved anything.

HAJ OMAR JROUD: (Translated) They didn't do anything for us since 1948. We are going backwards, not forward. We didn't see a good day to talk about.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Outside the Old City walls, there was more hope. Adly Hamouri owns a shoe store on Salahadin Street.

ADLY HAMOURI: What we heard about Camp David talks was good, and what we need from Camp David talks is a good solution. This is a city for everybody, but we don't want to have a Jerusalem where somebody rules us.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: In other words, you...

ADLY HAMOURI: I want to rule myself.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: That desire, shared by many Palestinians, makes frequent confrontations with Israelis inevitable, even as negotiations continue. In a melee earlier this month, Palestinians chanted "all Jerusalem is Arabic" as they confronted Israeli police. The police had blocked entrance to a meeting between local Palestinian leaders and visiting business executives from abroad. The meeting was illegal, police said, because the Palestinian Authority, which has a kind of de-facto government here, is not allowed to receive foreign visitors or have political meetings in Jerusalem without a special permit. Faisal Husseini, whose grandfather, great uncle, and great-great uncle were all mayors of Jerusalem in earlier times, is a top Palestinian official in the city.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What's happening here?

FAISAL HUSSEINI: As you see, there is an occupation in Jerusalem. Those people here, the police here, they have the control. They have the power to control the city. We would like to have a meeting here at this place, let's say, and they want to forbid us from having such a meeting.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: In the end, the police permitted a less formal gathering to take place in another location, and there was no violence, but the potential is always there. It's because of that potential, Bishop Younan says, that an agreement now is so important.

BISHOP YOUNAN: This is a turning point in our history both of Palestinians and Israelis. If we don't seize the moment and really find a negotiable solution where it gives everybody their equal rights, I think the a deep crisis.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Meron Benvenisti warns such talk does more harm than good.

MERON BENVENISTI: It is not a question if are we not going to resolve it now -- then there's going to be bloodshed. This is wrong even to suggest, because this is not how it's done here. This is a place where there is no redemption and no apocalypse.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: As their destinies are debated, people in this very special space continue their daily lives. But everywhere questions hang in the air, like jasmine on the old walls. (Bells tolling)

FOCUS - BILINGUAL EDUCATION

MARGARET WARNER: What happened when California rolled back bilingual education. Spencer Michels begins our coverage.

SPENCER MICHELS: Two years after California voters decided to shut down most bilingual education classes, new test results have provoked a new debate. The scores show that some Spanish-speaking students have dramatically improved their English reading and other academic skills by as much as nine percentage points for second graders. But state education officials say test results for all students are up, and they say it is premature by several years to conclude that ending bilingual education has helped Spanish speakers. Still, the results are being hailed by those who led the drive for Proposition 227, the highly controversial measure that outlawed bilingual education in 1998.

TELEVISION COMMERCIAL SPOKESMAN: Today, many immigrants work long hours, yet barely earn

enough to feed their children. Unless schools teach children to read and write English, they

may be trapped in the same hard life. Vote yes on Proposition 227.

SPENCER MICHELS: The ballot measure, which passed with 61% of the vote, was designed to end classes where Spanish-speaking students were taught some subjects in Spanish, with more English used as they got older. That system kept test scores down and dropout rates high, according to Silicon Valley businessman Ron Unz, who wrote the ballot measure.

RON UNZ, Proposition 227 Author: The reasons they're doing so badly is they don't learn how to read or write English properly in the schools, since the schools don't teach them English at a young age.

SPENCER MICHELS: The new law directed schools to place students with limited English proficiency into classes where English is the only language spoken-- so-called English immersion.

TEACHER: So I'm going to give you a hard one-- because you're in second grade. (Laughs) Measure. Measure. Remember, we measure how tall we are?

SPENCER MICHELS: Nearly half the nation's children who are not proficient in English live in California: About 1.4 million. So California's experience with eliminating bilingual education was watched closely.

TEACHER: Good job.

SPENCER MICHELS:Even after Proposition 227 passed, many educators continued to argue that bilingual education was much more effective than English immersion. They said if it were eliminated, test scores would drop even lower. Berkeley Superintendent Jack McLaughlin.

JACK McLAUGHLIN, Berkeley School Superintendent: Actually, there's overwhelming evidence throughout the nation that teaching reading in a student's native language is definitely in the best interest of that student.

SPENCER MICHELS: But today, statewide, 90% of limited-English students are in immersion classes. And the new test scores show those students have improved, especially in the early grades, where scores went up three to five points in reading and five to seven points in math over two years.

TEACHER: So either way, these two pieces are going to make seven. Right? Now what do I do?

SPENCER MICHELS: Skeptics, including state education officials, are not convinced. They say smaller classes and increased spending may account for the fact that results for all students are up. They say it's too early to tell the true impact of English immersion. And they emphasize that even with the increases, the scores of non-English speakers remain abysmally low. They say the gap between English speakers and non-English speakers is as wide as ever.

MARGARET WARNER: Gwen Ifill takes it from there.

GWEN IFILL: So, is bilingual education dead? Joining us to discuss the California experience are two school superintendents who have witnessed it. Ken Noonan, of the Oceanside School District north of San Diego, helped create the California Association of Bilingual Educators 30 years ago. He now believes English immersion is working. Jack McLaughlin of the Berkeley District, who we just met in Spencer Michels' piece, says students can best be taught in their native language.

Welcome, gentlemen. Mr. Noonan, when Proposition 227 passed two years ago, you said this would be a step back. You have apparently changed your mind.

KEN NOONAN, Oceanside School Superintendent: I have. And that's been based on experience, two times. One is the test scores of our Spanish-speaking children, especially the primary grades, have dramatically risen. The second is, visiting classrooms over two years and asking children to read to me and explain to me what they've read indicate that children are learning to read, to read English and read it well much earlier than i ever thought they could.

GWEN IFILL: Why is it that you were opposed to it originally?

KEN NOONAN: I've been a advocate for bilingual education for a long time. I was a teacher and a manager of bilingual education and helped form an association to support teachers. That advocacy has been strong, even though I've suspected for a long time there were some flaws we were not fixing, such as the length of time that many children were spending in, in our case, in Spanish instruction versus moving to English.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Mclaughlin, what has your experience been?

JACK McLAUGHLIN, Berkeley School Superintendent: Well, my experience has been in Berkeley School District, working with students and schools for over 27 years as a superintendent and really developing techniques, methodologies, to provide maximum achievement for all students, so it's just not limited to students that don't speak English, but all students in all ways.

GWEN IFILL: But you don't think that English immersion has been working?

JACK McLAUGHLIN: Oh, I'm really pleased. And I want to commend Ken for the great rise in test scores. That's fantastic. The whole state has pulledtogether through reforms, through the efforts of our teachers, all working together to make education better for everyone. But as far as, is it working, yes, it is working, but so are many outstanding bilingual programs throughout the state. The test scores from the bilingual programs that we have meet or exceed all those in the English immersion classes, so we're very proud of them, too.

GWEN IFILL: So the test scores in Berkeley, have they reflected the same improvement that they have in Oceanside?

JACK McLAUGHLIN: Well, actually, our scores started out and are higher than those in Oceanside for whatever reason, but we have seen improvement, and we're looking for more.

GWEN IFILL: So what is the point in bilingual education if English immersion works so well?

JACK McLAUGHLIN: Well, the point is our goals are not only to have our children speak English fluently, but also have access to the learning curriculum from the first day of school. And at the end of the program, as the program transitions into middle school, to not only be fluent in English, but fluent in a foreign language, Spanish in this case, be biliterate, bilingual, and we feel that the citizens of today in this world need more than just one language. So we're very proud of our program. It is successful, and it works for us.

GWEN IFILL: So Mr. Noonan, is there any reason why bilingual education is still necessary if people who come to the school system already with different... a different language from their homes now are learning English in the schools, why do the schools now have to teach bilingually anymore?

KEN NOONAN: Well, i think the issue is one that's flexibility to all districts in the state of California. Districts can pick their way to go through it. However, the new law, 227, clearly mandates that instruction be provided in English, and almost overwhelmingly in English. We took that law and applied it very literally, and we've seen great success. Yes, there are other things that have gone on. Reducing class size in grades one and two in our district, also moving to a strong phonics program has helped all children in our district; all of our scores have gone up. But clearly 227 was catalytic. It was a catalyst for our district, at least, and showed us that these children could progress in English far earlier than we had anticipated. So the worth of a program such as bilingual education becomes really something that's very personal, and I think something that each district has to examine.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Noonan, let's talk about these tests for a moment. We know there is always controversy about standardized tests. Are these tests an adequate measure about whether the students are actually learning English, or whether they're just learning how to take tests?

KEN NOONAN: Well, I think they're adequate in the sense that they really do test the spectrum, it's reading, and writing, and Math, and it's Science, and other subjects will be added. The tests are pretty comprehensive and fairly broad. Some people don't like normed tests, but i think this gives us a pretty clear measure. The tests are in English, so it's also a test of how well the children can understand the problem and provide a solution.

GWEN IFILL: How about that, Mr. Mclaughlin, these tests?

JACK McLAUGHLIN: Well, the tests are again a snapshot in time, and we're just in our infancy in this high- stakes testing in California. But -- and it's shown, at least the research i've seen, that as a new test is administered, the results do increase in the first few years as teachers now understand what is expected to be tested and the curriculums are aligned to that test, and yes, test results increase; they do. But that is not the only measure. I mean, communities, as Ken said, should have the opportunity to choose the outcomes that they want. If reading English and speaking English is the sole outcome, that's one thing. But if we want to go beyond that and talk about reducing or eliminating the achievement gap, or having students have access to more than one language, than that perhaps is another desire.

GWEN IFILL: Does the current law allow that kind of flexibility, in your opinion?

JACK McLAUGHLIN: Oh, yes, it does. The current law does allow for waivers. There are many successful bilingual programs thriving in the state of California through the waiver process that the parents are allowed to opt in, and they're doing very, very well. I agree with Ken that this was catalytic, and i commend Unz for doing this. It put the spotlight on a very severe need that we have all over the nation. And that in itself has energized us all to find solutions to this problem, and that is in the best interest of all the students.

GWEN IFILL: How do we know part of the solution wasn't the class size that Mr. Noonan mentioned or was not the phonics education that he mentioned? How do you measure that against the English immersion program?

JACK McLAUGHLIN: And I think that's what the state officials are talking about. It's early to make a judgment that, yes, because of Proposition 227, therefore all students are going to learn to speak English sooner, faster, and so forth. They're saying we need time to study this. That's what I'd recommended. It seems to be accelerating to a national issue, so maybe we ought to have a national study of this similar to the Collier-Thomas 14-year study on education. It had similar results. Let's elevate this to a research level, not take tools out of teacher's hands that may be good for kids and really come to some conclusions, rather than make it a political football.

GWEN IFILL: How about that, Mr. Noonan? Is this something that can be measured on a national level, or can this only be measured district to district, state to state?

KEN NOONAN: Doing it at a national level would be fine, and I agree with jack that needs to be done. However, i think the issue is we're at a critical stage in California, probably in the nation. We need to move our children, our Latino children into the English mainstream as quickly as possible, because the language of success in this country is English. And unless we do that, these children will not see the success that others have. In our case, we have seen children moving from Spanish to English, coming to almost grade level in reading within two years, which used to take five to six years by teaching children to read first in Spanish and then in English. I think there is a place for research, but we don't have time to wait. We need action. Our children must be brought into the English mainstream as quickly as we can do that.

GWEN IFILL: It sounds like you're saying that the traditional method of bilingual education, which is teaching children in lower grades in their own language and then eventually bringing them into English, should be set aside now in favor of this way of doing it in California.

KEN NOONAN: What I'm saying is people should not be afraid of it, that it works. It works well. And they should take a close look at it, as something they should use in their district.

GWEN IFILL: How about that, Mr. Mclaughlin? Is this something that Arizona and California, which now are taking this up next in their own initiatives, is this something they ought to act on based on the California experience?

JACK McLAUGHLIN: I still really have a problem with taking a tool out of a teacher's hand. It's like telling an art teacher that you can teach art, but you can't use the color red. You know, if, in fact, the ability to speak another language will help a student learn, not only English, but the whole learning curriculum, then why should we take that out of a teacher's hand? I can't think of another teaching technique that has been inaty the voters. I don't know of another one. It's like in the beginning of the century when you could only learn if you were right-handed. So all the left-handers were forced to write right-handed. I mean, it's very comparable to me. Why take a tool that can be used out of a teacher's hand, especially with the high-stakes accountability in testing we have. We're accountable for results. Why should it matter how we get to those results, because we are held accountable to the results, and if we need to teach bilingually, then allow us to teach bilingually.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Noonan and Mr. Mclaughlin, thank you very much. I imagine California, as usual, is starting a national debate. Thank you.

RECAP

MARGARET WARNER: Again, the major stories of this Wednesday: Attorney General Reno said she's decided not to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Vice President Gore's truthfulness about his 1996 fund-raising. The Clinton administration released guidelines that for the first time will allow federally- funded research on human embryo cells. And a Gulf Air jet with 143 people on board crashed into the Persian Gulf. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Margaret Warner. Thanks for being with us. Good night.