A comprehensive peace between Israel and the Arab states can be achieved only with Syria's full participation. Such a peace will considerably enhance regional stability, which in turn is in the best strategic interests of the United States. Thus, if stationing American troops on the Golan Heights to monitor the Israeli-Syrian borders becomes the only remaining prerequisite to peace, then the Clinton administration and the Republican Congress should accept this opportunity.

From the moment I arrived at Damascus Airport till the moment I left the city eight days later, I engaged every Syrian I met in a discussion about the Israeli-Syrian peace process.

From the moment I arrived at Damascus Airport until the moment I left the city eight days later, I engaged every Syrian I met in a discussion about the Israeli-Syrian peace process.

President Clinton's decision to come to the Middle East was courageous, wise and timely. Although the visit was occasioned by the signing of the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty, it will have far-reaching implications on the Middle East's new emerging order. The cynicism that surrounds the president's motivation notwithstanding, the president has seized a historic opportunity to further Arab-Israeli peace, which is vital to American strategic interests.

Hamas's terror attack in downtown Jerusalem, its kidnapping and murder of soldier Nahshon Wachsman and Wednesday's bus bombing in the heart of Tel Aviv raise a number of daunting issues about the prospects for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

The tragic end of Hamas's kidnapping of an Israeli soldier and the awful bus explosion Wednesday in the heart of Tel Aviv that killed 22 Israelis raise a number of daunting issues about the prospects for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

From every indication, the creation of a Palestinian state is inevitable. The Gaza-Jericho agreement provides only the first stage in the long road toward statehood. Israel and the United States would be well advised to accept this inevitable development and help the Palestinians establish institutions for democratic rule.

The 27th anniversary of Jerusalem's unification is being celebrated this month in Israel only a few weeks after the Palestinian self-rule agreement went into effect. Perhaps more than at any other time in the past 25 years the Israelis are concerned about the status of Jerusalem a few years down the line.

Yitzhak Rabin now faces an extremely difficult task: convincing Israelis of the wisdom of exchanging the Golan, which has been labeled "strategically critical," for peace.