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.

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.

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.

On his maiden visit to the Middle East as United States secretary of state, Warren Christopher should lay the foundation for the revival of the Arab-Israeli peace talks without the deportees' cloud hanging over the next round of peace negotiations. It is far better to postpone the resumption of the peace talks by another two or three months, provided that the question of the expulsion is settled and all the deportees have been returned. The US-Israel agreement to allow 100 deportees to return home, with the rest to follow suit by the end of 1993, is flawed and impractical.

The aftershock of the Hebron massacre continues to reverberate through the Israeli consciousness, raising serious questions about fundamental Israeli ideology and understanding of the ethos of being Jewish at this historic juncture.

Since its capture by Israel in 1967, the Golan Heights has come to symbolize for both Israel and Syria more than an important strategic territory.

The question that troubles many Jordanian nationalists is whether or not the emergence of a Palestinian state resulting from the Israeli-Palestine Liberation Organization agreement will mean the beginning of the end of Hashemite rule in Jordan.

A TOP Syrian official actively involved in Middle East peace negotiations told me that, following United States Secretary of State Warren Christopher's visits to the area in early August, Syria and Israel were almost ready to conclude a declaration of principles leading to an agreement. It was a two-part document: First, a declaration of principles – "Full withdrawal for full peace" – that would have obligated Israel to give up all of the Golan, and Syria to offer a comprehensive peace in return. And second, an agenda for negotiating the comprehensive peace, including establishment of several committees that would deal with mutual security, military issues, the settlements, and peaceful relations.

Following weeks of accusing Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of trying to make peace with charlatans who will do anything to gain their "real" objective, the eventual destruction of Israel, Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu finally has come up with a plan of his own.