A SPECIAL REPORT: PEACE PACT REACTION

MAKING PEACE: Skepticism, caution and hope in the Valley greeted the news of the Mideast peace pact Thursday. . . . Endorsing the plan was Marcia Cayne of Woodland Hills, president of the 60,000-member Assn. of Reform Zionists of America, who called it a “historic opportunity finally to break the cycle of war in the Middle East.”

MUSLIM HOPES: Also optimistic was Glendale resident Salam Al-Marayati, director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles. . . . “My concern is to find out exactly what the Palestinian people want,” he said. Ahmed El-Gabalawy, public affairs director of the Islamic Center of Northridge, said: “We welcome any step in the direction of peace, however small it is.”

LIKE BROTHERS: “I’m fed up with war,” said Israeli immigrant Sasson Reuven, a battle-scarred paratrooper now living in the Valley (B4) . . . “Arabs and Israelis used to live like equals until 1948. If there is a real peace, it can be like this again.”

BIRTH OF A NATION: If the agreement calls for a new Palestinian nation, said Palestinian-born Christian Joseph Haiek, the Glendale publisher of the Arab American Almanac, “I see a very good beginning and we will pray for its success.”

JEWISH SKEPTICS: Orthodox Rabbi Zvi Block, dean of Aish HaTorah College of Jewish Studies in North Hollywood, said he believes Israelis do not support the treaty . . . “This only tells the Arabs they can get more,” Block said. “We are very distressed at the news.”