Peace Accord Brings Mixed Reactions : Mideast: Among local Jewish and Palestinian residents, there is cautious optimism, along with some measure of skepticism.

Monday’s signing of the Mideast peace pact sparked mixed emotions among Ventura County’s Jewish and Palestinian residents--hope that it will succeed and fear that extremists from both sides could ruin it.

The pact’s establishment of Palestinian self-rule in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip and the West Bank of Israel promises Palestinians the homeland they have pursued for years. But Palestinians and Jews here were skeptical that it will last without a struggle.

“Peace is ultimately a good thing to happen in the region,” said Omar Jubran, a Palestinian who moved in 1978 to Simi Valley, where he is an electronics sales distributor.

“However, throughout history, the Palestinians haven’t been dealt a just hand,” said Jubran, whose parents fled from Palestine to Jordan in the 1948 Israeli war for independence. “They’ve been moved around, kicked out. So I’m skeptical (of) the outlining of the territories and the overall accord.”

Nidal Barakat, a Palestinian who now owns a convenience store in Moorpark, said, “It’s an opportunity and a challenge for both peoples,” although he added that extremists on both sides will surely test the peace.

“But hopefully if there’s an increase of the standard of living for the Palestinians, that fosters the peace and makes the ground for peace more fertile and the ground for the extremists’ arguments futile,” said Barakat, whose family left the West Bank in the 1967 Israeli-Arab War.

Many Jewish Ventura County residents who watched the signing ceremonies on television said they are hopeful their spiritual homeland’s gesture of conciliation will bring peace to Israel.

“My first response is ecstasy because of my enthusiasm for peace and the pursuit of peace,” said Rabbi Michael Berk, president of the Ventura County Jewish Council. “My second reaction is caution, because I know there are lots of obstacles to peace. The obstacles are psychological and political.”

However, Berk said he believes the timing of the pact--three days before Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year that begins the season of high holy days--offers hope for its success.

“I think that the events of this morning cast a real bright light on our new year, and I look at it as a wonderful gift to the Jewish people . . . a message of hope and a message of the incredible possibilities that do exist in our world for change,” he said.

Others said they were more cautiously optimistic.

“What we see today is a first start and an opportunity for real peace in that region,” said Dr. Richard Reisman, president of the United Jewish Appeal for western Ventura County. “I watched the ceremony, and I was certainly moved and excited. . . . I much prefer to watch the TV pictures we saw today as opposed (to) the SCUD missiles we saw impacting on Israel” during the Gulf War.

However, he said, “I think that the notion of land for peace predicates itself on a potential weakening of Israel’s geographic security.” Reisman said Israel should be wary that Palestinians do not use their new rights as a toehold from which to seek control of more Israeli land.

But he added: “You have to take this first step. You have to take this risk in order to see what evolves.”

Roy Schneider, a Ventura attorney and president of Temple Beth Torah, said Israelis should be willing to give up land in exchange for peace.

“The younger people in Israel all get hopes and dreams, and now they have a chance to see them fulfilled, even if it’s a chance for a smaller Israel,” Schneider said. “It’s better to have a place where there’s hopes and dreams than a place where they could die tomorrow.”

Maayan Yesset, a captain in the Israeli Air Force visiting friends in Ventura, said she grew very emotional watching the televised treaty signing, and hopes the peace will hold.

“I sure do feel sorry for those parents (whose) sons were killed, but hopefully on the streets people will respect” the pact, she said. “Hopefully there won’t be any violence.”

However, Nader Barakat, a Palestinian-born Moorpark engineer, said violence will be inevitable, as extremists on both sides fight the accord.

“I have no doubt that there will be extremism that will be expressed in some violent fashion on both sides,” he said. “However, I believe that the commitment on both sides in leadership not to be coerced by violence is the only way to convince both sides that the peace is for real and for the goodness of both people.”

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