The lesson of political assassinations in the modern era is that they turn political rifts into irreconcilable splits. As Israel faces just such a scenario in the wake of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the way out may lie in looking to resolve an even more intractable conflict. PNS editor Franz Schurmann, a professor emeritus of history and sociology at the University of California, is the author of numerous books on international politics.

Assassinations never bode well for a nation. All too often they turn political rifts into irreconcilable splits, opening the way to civil conflict -- even civil war.

In the wake of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination by a religious pro-settler rightist, Israel faces just such a danger. The rift between pro-settler and pro-peace forces not only within Israel itself but within the overseas Jewish community threatens to become irreconcilable.

Even as a grief stricken public yearns to bridge the divide, a history of political assassinations in the modern era suggests the effort may be futile. A wiser course lies in seeking an even more unlikely reconciliation between other forces at the root of the conflict.

* In 1881 when the great reformer Tsar Alexander II was blown to bits, the rift between reformers and revolutionaries in Russia's political class became irreconcilable and the way was open to a century of bloody revolution.

* In 1925 the founder of the modern Chinese nation, Sun Yat-sen, suddenly died in Peking just after his Kuomintang army had triumphantly ended their "Northern March." Rumors never ceased that he had been poisoned. After his death the Kuomintang split between a Red Left and a White Right, opening the way to a half century of bloody revolution.

* In 1928 Croatian peasant leader Stepan Radic was assassinated in the Yugoslav parliament and in 1934 Alexander, the Serbian king of Yugoslavia, also was assassinated. Those two assassinations let to the bloody ethnic conflict between Croats and Serbs in World War II and its continuation now in the former Yugoslavia.

* In 1948 Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated assuring that the partition of India would become an enduring confrontation between India and Pakistan, as well as Hindus and Muslims.

* In 1951 Jordan's King Abdullah was assassinated in Jerusalem when leaving the great Al-Aqsa mosque. That assassination split Arab political classes between those seeking collaboration with the West and those opposed. It opened the way to an even bigger split in the Arab world between secularists and Islamists.

* In 1963 President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. That assassination turned the rift between American liberals and conservatives into a split that exploded later in the 1960s over civil rights and Vietnam.

* In 1981 Anwar As-Sadat was assassinated making the split between Egypt's secularists and Islamists irreconcilable. Coming on the heels of Iran's Islamic revolution, it stoked the fires of an Islamist revolution now burning throughout the Arab and Islamic world.

The deepening split between Israeli pro-settler and pro-peace forces in the wake of Prime Minister Rabin's assassination is similar to that among the Arabs -- one between secularists and religious and between those who would rely on the West and others who advocate self-reliance. If these Middle Eastern splits get even wider and corresponding ones arise in the West, then the future of the region is very bleak indeed.

But if that bleakness is recognized by Jews, Arabs, Americans and all others involved, then drastic moves must be considered to avoid the horrors currently afflicting former Yugoslavia.

The only possible solution is to think the unthinkable -- to start with what would appear to be an even more intractable conflict. If reconciliation between pro-peace and pro-settler forces now appears to be out of the question, the alternative path lies in direct talks by Jewish settlers and their right wing allies with Hamas radicals and their Islamist backers in the wider Arab world.

These two opposing political forces, more than any others in the region, have vowed to fight to the death for the right to live on the same pieces of land. All of them must know that for both, such a fight could lead to a destiny worse than death -- mutual extinction in an all-out war. The realism that both these revolutionary radicals purport to operate with should lead them to recognize that, in the midst of the emotions over the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin, they may have a chance for peace between them brighter even than the peace process being engineered over their heads by so many world leaders.