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A gathering last week to commemorate the peace efforts of slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin turned into a lively discussion on Israel's grim present and its hopes for a peaceful future.

"The idea of peace is harder to believe in a time of war," Donny Inbar, cultural attaché for the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco, told the crowd of close to 150 people on Nov. 1 at the Marin Jewish Community Center in San Rafael.

"But still, we hang onto that thread, that maybe, someday…"

Organized just days before the fifth anniversary of Rabin's assassination, the discussion on current Middle East violence featured Inbar and Yair Sheleg, an Israeli journalist and author. The event was co-sponsored by the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation's Israel Center and the Marin branch of the Jewish Community Relations Council.

As the speakers sat upon the stage in the community center's auditorium, where the discussion was moved to accommodate the large turnout, Inbar described a peace of a practical nature, rather than an idealistic one.

"Maybe we can't be brothers," he said of the Israelis and the Palestinians, "but we must seek some type of coexistence and just stop killing each other."

Referring to the 1967 Six-Day War, in which the Israelis were victorious, Inbar added: "It doesn't matter who is the winner. Everyone loses in war."

But, as Sheleg pointed out, the war of 1967 resulted in a gain of land for the Israelis — a large bone of contention for the Palestinians.

Yet Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, he said, rejected Prime Minister Ehud Barak's recent proposal granting land to the Palestinians, "the most generous proposal an Israeli prime minister has ever made and probably ever will make."

Inbar called this a "cold-blooded decision" on the part of Arafat.

"It's sad to say they've sabotaged themselves," said Inbar. "All [the prosperity in the area] has been shattered because of Arafat's egomania."

Sheleg, on the other hand, said Arafat "has by no means gone insane."

"They [the Palestinians] want historic justification and we [the Israelis] want to settle," he said. "The maximum we can give to them is less than can be offered to get to the heart of the conflict."

He called these "two different levels of problem solving" the obstacle barring the groups from a peaceful coexistence and causing "ongoing hostility."

Inbar expressed concern that the media's portrayal of the current Middle East crisis reflects badly on Israel.

"If I weren't Israeli and I hadn't lived there. I'd probably think that Israel was the aggressor," Inbar said, admitting that the Israelis have "done many things wrong."

"It's easy to attribute fault to them," he said. "Many people are used to seeing Jews as the underdog, but Israel has changed that. So, they're seen as the aggressor."

And although Israel may seem like the loser on the public relations front, Inbar added, "Israel would never sacrifice their children for a photo opportunity."

Aside from a photo opportunity, Sheleg said, the tactic of allowing their children to fight in the streets may be a ploy on the Palestinian's part to try and gain help.

"A high number of Palestinian casualties would cause the international community to intervene," he said. "This, in their opinion, would lead to a Palestinian state."

Expressing a belief that human life "is not an expensive commodity" for Palestinians who have a "selfish, cold way of thinking," Inbar said he'd "prefer Israel to exist as a democracy with Arabs as a minority."

That comment aroused the anger of one male audience member who had asked the panelist how peace was possible in a Jewish state in which Arabs are the minority.

"Haven't we learned from the civil rights movement of the 1960s that peace is incompatible with ethnic discrimination?" he had asked, insinuating that the United States does not consider itself a white nation, despite a white majority.

Responded Inbar: "Polls show that 66 percent of Arab citizens in Israel declared their loyalty would not be to the state of Israel, but to an Arab state," he said. "Yet the same 66 percent prefer to remain Israeli citizens."

Upon Inbar's answer, the man walked out of the room and did not return.

Sheleg continued the discussion of Arabs living as a minority in the Jewish state by using the example of Jews in European countries.

"In Europe there's a flag with a cross, but you don't have Jews trying to change it," he said. "They accept the fact that this is a Christian state."

"It's not in Israel's interest to rule Palestine," said Inbar. "The last thing we want to do is lead our country into anything that would resemble apartheid. I'd rather we live separate, and I'd wish them well."