Israel's drawbridges have yet to be lowered, so the Israeli media have jumped the moat and begun scouting the Middle East. The old dry and cautious reporting of developments in the Arab world, usually based on wire services and radio monitoring of Arab broadcasts, is being replaced by the often-gushing first-person accounts of Israeli journalists who are seeing places like Jordan, Tunisia, and the gulf states for the first time.

No subject is too minor: the cleanliness of the streets in Amman, the gold-jewelry shopping sprees of the women of Abu Dhabi, the entrepreneurs of Damascus. There is a hunger in Israel for stories about the enemy out of uniform, because while the borders (except for Egypt's) remain almost totally sealed, the prospect of Israel joining the Middle East suddenly beckons.

Major newspapers are now in sharp competition for reports from even the most anti-Israeli parts of the Arab world, including Teheran. And electronic journalists are scoring historic firsts. The stories -- euphoric right after the peace agreement, now more realistic -- arouse complex emotions among readers and listeners, and among the journalists themselves.

Rina Matsliah, Israel Radio's first reporter in Tunis, covered the September signing of the PLO-Israel peace accord from PLO headquarters. Under the PLO mantle of hospitality, journalists' Israeli passports were accepted in Tunis, and Matsliah is still trying to adjust to the idea that Israeli reporters' best allies in the Arab world are PLO officials. "It was terribly confusing," she says. "I just couldn't get it into my head when I was told at the Hilton in Tunis that the regular price for a room is $ 100, but as a PLO guest 1 only have to pay $ 60."

An Israeli television crew also traveled to Tunis in September -- another first. Dov Atzmon, the foreign editor of Israel's largest daily, Yediot Ahronot,says the PLO had always been willing to grant interviews to Israeli reporters, and even to pay for their fare to Tunis, but until now the Israeli media hadn't wanted to provide it with a platform.

In Jordan, however, although the authorities permitted Yitzchak Feller, Israel Radio's first reporter in that country, to enter on a U.S. passport, his ability to report was limited. Only one person was willing to speak into the microphone -- the PLO's public relations director in Amman.

Dan Scemama, the first Israeli TV reporter to cover Jordan, entered in September as a French tourist. On arrival he sent faxes to the royal palace disclosing his identity as a journalist and requesting interviews. A foreign network agreed to sell him footage related to the peace talks between Israel and Jordan, and Scemama read out a Hebrew translation over the phone.

When the footage and his familiar voice were," broadcast on the news that night -- the day of the famous Rabin-Arafat handshake in Washington -- Israeli viewers may have thought that Israel TV had a crew in Amman. Jordanian police certainly did. They turned Scemama's room upside down in a search for hidden cameras or some super-antenna. In the end, harassed by the authorities and threatened by Islamic extremists, Scemama left Jordan, as did Israel Radio's Feller, for the same reason. In early November, when rumors of a Jordan-Israel treaty were starting to circulate, an Israeli TV crew was refused entry.

Still, Scemama says he wants to produce stories about how Arabs work and live. "I think Israelis imagine that in Damascus, for instance, all the residents have only one thought: how to destroy Israel," he says. "If they could see pictures, they would be surprised." Finally, Scemama adds, Israeli journalists are beginning to feel like European or American reporters who can "cover their own region."

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