(September 19) - Dead-of-night entry, outrage, demonstrations. Police presence, politicians holding forth, international outcries. High Court rulings, evictions, re-entries. The controversy over Ras al-Amud is playing itself out according to a well-worn scenario.

After the smoke clears, the press moves on to the next crisis, and the protesters go back to their jobs, the dedicated core of right-wing activists - whether the original families who moved in or a 'maintenance crew' - are likely to remain.From the top of the jungle-gym at the City of David Visitors' Center, one of the four compounds that make up the Jewish community in Silwan, you can look across the Kidron Valley and see the street in Ras al-Amud that has become Jerusalem's newest confrontation ground.

The jungle-gym, a couple of hundred meters from the Dung Gate, from where you can walk easily to the Western Wall, provides not only a magnificent view but also a telling perspective. Six years ago, in October 1991, the scene on the street in front of this compound, now decorated with manicured lawns and yellow and orange flowers, bore a striking resemblance to the scene that has been playing itself out all week in front of the house in Ras al-Amud that Irving Moskowitz bought.

Then, as now, riot police struggled to keep Palestinians and Jews away from each other. Then, as now, the press camped out around the clock, waiting for some "action." Then, as now, politicos from Left and Right came to voice their opinions. Then, as now, Faisal Husseini, the Palestinian Authority's minister responsible for Jerusalem, came to the site, sat with the neighborhood's Palestinian residents, and issued warnings.

"The Jewish settlement in Silwan could destroy the peace process," Husseini, then referred to simply as a "Palestinian activist," was quoted as saying. He appealed to the international community to intervene and stop Jews from moving into east Jerusalem. This week in Ras al-Amud, Husseini said, and did, exactly the same thing.

In October 1991 the eyes of the world were very much on the Middle East, no less so than today. It was a period considered "delicate" and "sensitive" because Palestinian, Israeli and Jordanian delegations were meeting in Washington, hammering matters out prior to the Madrid Conference, which would begin just a few weeks later.

As a result of Jews moving into Silwan, Peace Now demonstrated, the world protested, most of the Jews were evicted, the attorney-general hemmed and hawed, the High Court adjudicated and most of the Jews returned. The final result: instead of the original 12 families living among the Arabs of Silwan, there are today 20 families.

In the final analysis, admitted Peace Now leader Tzali Reshef, a veteran of the numerous battles to keep Jews out of Arab east Jerusalem, the same pattern, with similar results, is likely to repeat itself in Ras al-Amud. After the smoke clears, the press will move on to the next crisis, and the protesters will go back to their jobs and families. And the dedicated core of right-wing activists - whether the original families who moved in or a "maintenance crew" - are likely to remain.

Har Homa is the most recent example of how this pattern works, but it's certainly not the only one. Over the last decade there have been numerous instances in which a Jewish compound set up in an Arab part of the city was accompanied by much fury and political commotion, only to remain intact, even bursting at the seams with Jewish residents long after the fury had dissipated and the commotion had died down.

And a physical presence, regardless of its size, is all that seems to matter. Just look at Hebron, suggests Yossi Baumol, the executive director of the Ateret Cohanim Yeshiva in the Moslem Quarter, an organization that has been at the forefront of Jewish purchases in east Jerusalem. "If there are two or three Jewish families in an Arab neighborhood, people are going to visit, it gives a sense of security, it makes that street feel part of Israel. And if, God forbid, the government wants to divide Jerusalem, we can look at Hebron and see that a few Jewish families are the ones who determined the border - not the army, not Netanyahu, not Arafat."

In addition to Silwan, there are numerous other examples. MK Benny Elon's Beit Orot Yeshiva is located in a house also owned by Moskowitz on the opposite side of the Mount of Olives from Ras al-Amud. It too was established amid a storm of protest and outcries in 1990.

The same could be said of Ariel Sharon's home in the Moslem Quarter, which he moved into just as the intifada was erupting in December 1987. Riots in Jerusalem that month were at first largely attributed to Sharon's decision to move into the Moslem Quarter.

And then there was St. John's Hospice. When 150 settlers moved into the building in the Old City on Ash Wednesday in 1990, again there was an outcry, condemnation at the UN, burning tires, the High Court, and eviction. That time the Jews were allowed to keep guards there to watch the property. These "guards," men and women, have since married and even had children. The net result: 10 Jewish families now live in the hospice, now known as Neot David.

It was perhaps with the St. John's precedent in mind that Likud MK Michael Kleiner, head of the Eretz Yisrael lobby in the coalition, advised the group who moved into Ras al-Amud to accept the compromise put forward this week, whereby they would leave the Moskowitz home and a group of guards would enter. "This compromise would take the issue out of the headlines," Kleiner said. "The principle of Jewish ownership there would be maintained. I would not be stubborn about insisting that those staying in the house must be families, and not guards or maintenance men."

When all is said and done, said Labor MK Shlomo Ben-Ami, the group of right-wing activist will remain in Ras al-Amud because their "level of ideological commitment" is much higher than those who are protesting against them.

But at what price the "victory"? Faisal Husseini, speaking during one of his many visits to the site throughout the week, said that the examples cited above are leading to an accumulative feeling among the Palestinians of helplessness, frustration and despair.

"If the people see that we are not getting results, they will choose another way, maybe another leadership. And I don't know what will happen after that, what kind of price we will have to pay," he said in hushed tones, as people clamored around him Wednesday to speak to him about Ras al-Amud.

Husseini said that if the present tactic of "non-violent" resistance doesn't do the job, doesn't keep Jews from moving into Arab parts of the city, the end result will be that the Palestinians will embrace other means of resistance.

Reshef claims that although the settlers appear to win localized types of battles in Jerusalem, the Left is winning the war. "Maybe in the short term they are winning," he said of the Right. "But not if you take a longer view. Look, we have returned all of Sinai to Egypt, moved out of all the [main] Palestinian population centers. The fight is no longer over Eretz Yisrael, but over a parcel here or there. Everyone realizes there is no going back."

But the struggles for the small parcels, especially when they are in Jerusalem, are highly significant.

Ateret Cohanim's Baumol says the Ras al-Amud saga is proceeding in exactly the same way as the other precedents in Jerusalem. There's nothing to indicate that the conclusion will be any different from what finally happened in Silwan, St. John's Hospice or Har Homa. He said that even the Western Wall Tunnel, the spark that set off a round of violence last year, is "open and running despite all the "noise."

"This time we are operating under even better conditions," he said. "This time the move took place after a terror incident, and not before; and it took place after [US Secretary of State Madeleine] Albright's failed mission, not before or during it." This way, Baumol said, no one can blame the move into Ras al-Amud for the terror, or for the apparent futility of the Albright trip.

But, counters Peace Now political secretary Mossy Raz, there are a couple of differences between Ras al-Amud and similar moves in the past. First of all, "this time we will make sure that there is a constant flow of people to the site. They [the right-wing activists] want the issue to die down, to get knocked off the headlines. We do not intend to let that happen."

The second difference, according to Raz, "is that this time the prime minister, at least publicly, has come out against the move." This was not the case with the previous incidents. In fact, the government of former prime minister Yitzhak Shamir reportedly covertly funded the move into St. John's Hospice, something that caused acute embarrassment to the Americans, who were then considering the loan guarantees for Soviet immigrants.

Professor Shmuel Sandler, a Bar-Ilan University political science professor who specializes in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said there is another difference surrounding the Ras al-Amud move that may dictate a different outcome: Netanyahu's political desire to focus world opinion not on settlements, but on security. "The terror incidents in Jerusalem worked against the Palestinians during Albright's visit," Sandler said. "The emphasis she placed on the need for security was because of these attacks. Ras al-Amud will draw attention away from security and onto settlements. This is something Netanyahu neither wants nor needs."