Peace Treaty

Jordan yesterday became only the second Arab country to declare peace with Israel as leaders of the two neighboring states initialed a treaty to be signed later this month. Two days of intensive bargaining between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Jordan's King Hussein ironed out the final differences over borders and water rights, yielding a peace agreement that came much sooner than many had expected. Though Hussein and Rabin had ended the official state of war at a White House ceremony in July, political observers had warned that the issues still dividing the two countries could hamper a final peace treaty.

My optimism index for real Mideast peace is on the rise again. Jordan's King Hussein, visiting Washington, D.C., this week, gave it a boost. The Jordanian monarch reportedly met secretly with Israeli Premier Yitzhak Rabin recently in London to iron out important details before peace talks resume between the two countries in July. He didn't acknowledge as much to a group of reporters on Tuesday but said he would "welcome" a public meeting with the Israeli leader "whenever the time is ripe.

Jordanians went to the polls yesterday in a multiparty election in which new voting rules were expected to chip away at the drawing power of Islamic candidates. Early results coming in from 2,900 polling places showed traditional tribal leaders loyal to the monarchy doing well among rural Bedouins, while poor urban districts supported candidates with the Islamic Action Front. The umbrella group of Muslim fundamentalists who favor Islamic laws and oppose a peace treaty with Israel is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Bill Clinton is learning foreign policy on the job, and nowhere does his lack of experience show as badly as on Bosnia. Clinton campaigned on a pledge to do more to halt Serb "ethnic cleansing" than President Bush. Administration policy is supposed to be aimed at promoting a peace treaty for Bosnia and helping to enforce it. But as Bosnian peace talks reach a crucial stage, and Bosnian Muslims join Croats in signing a peace treaty - leaving Bosnian Serbs as the lone holdout - administration policy appears to be in disarray.

For participants in the St. Patrick's Day Parade Sunday, it was time to be festive and to enjoy. But the Irish of Havertown had special reason to rejoice. Its float won the Irish Society award for the fourth straight year. The theme of the floats this year was St. Patrick, herald of Christ's love, bringing peace to all nations. The Havertown group's float featured St. Patrick blessing President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev as they signed a peace treaty. The float also had a group of Irish dancers.

CAIRO - The spokesman for Egypt's ultraconservative Islamist party told Israeli Army Radio in remarks broadcast Wednesday that the group does not oppose its country's historic peace treaty with Israel. Yousseri Hamad's interview with the Israeli broadcaster is unusual for followers of the Salafi Islamic trend, who typically shun Israel for its policies toward Palestinians and its annexation of east Jerusalem, home to Islam's third-holiest site. The interview countered Israeli fears that Islamist parties would seek to cut ties with Israel.

Arab League foreign ministers agreed in principle yesterday to move the organization's headquarters back to Cairo from Tunis, ending an 11-year arrangement prompted by Egypt's peace treaty with Israel. Egyptian Foreign Minister Esmat Abdel-Meguid announced the unanimous decision yesterday at a biannual Arab League session. Egypt's Middle East News agency reported the announcement in a dispatch from the Tunisian capital. Abdel-Meguid said the move would take place in September.

A lot of countries would like to see the United Nations become the world's Globocop, now that the Cold War is over. The idea of dumping the responsibility for messy civil or regional wars on U.N. shoulders has become very appealing at a time when domestic defense budgets are being cut. "Let the United Nations do it" is the new slogan, as if that absolves individual nations of any need to sacrifice soldiers or treasure. But, unfortunately, that is a delusion. The United Nations is not some free-floating body that dispenses miracle cures.

Space station will crash at end of run The International Space Station will be allowed to crash into the sea after its mission ends in about 2020 to avoid adding to the debris orbiting Earth, Russia's Federal Space Agency said. "After the ISS completes its mission, we'll have to sink it," Vitaly Davydov, deputy head of Roscosmos said Wednesday. "It can't be left in orbit because it's too complex and heavy. It could produce a lot of junk. " Space agencies from the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada jointly operate the station, which has been in orbit since 1998.

Even in a region known for volatility, the mood swings in the Mideast in the last few days have been stunning. Last Friday, Israelis and Palestinians were riveted by the grim kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian fundamentalists and his death in the shootout between his captors and Israeli commandos. That tragedy overshadowed the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. By Monday, Israel and Jordan had announced they were initialing a full peace treaty.

CAIRO - The Muslim Brotherhood is trying to maneuver its way between its fierce anti-Israel ideology and the realities of governing as it ascends to leadership in Egypt for the first time in its history, while facing the key question of how to deal with the country's peace treaty with the Jewish state. The fundamentalist group's stance on the accord - opposition but not renunciation - is a telling sign of its broader style of politics. It can play down its hard-line doctrine in favor of short-term pragmatism as it looks to the long term, leaves its options open and engages in a degree of double-talk to pave the way. The stance could also reflect the group's own evolution as its new political party, whose members will be the ones actually involved in governing, gradually has to distinguish itself from the hard line of the Brotherhood itself, an 83-year-old organization whose leadership worked for decades in a hive-like secrecy because of state repression.

CAIRO - The spokesman for Egypt's ultraconservative Islamist party told Israeli Army Radio in remarks broadcast Wednesday that the group does not oppose its country's historic peace treaty with Israel. Yousseri Hamad's interview with the Israeli broadcaster is unusual for followers of the Salafi Islamic trend, who typically shun Israel for its policies toward Palestinians and its annexation of east Jerusalem, home to Islam's third-holiest site. The interview countered Israeli fears that Islamist parties would seek to cut ties with Israel.

JERUSALEM - Israel on Tuesday officially approved a deal to swap 25 Egyptian prisoners for a U.S.-Israeli citizen arrested in Egypt four months ago on suspicions of espionage. The unanimous vote by Israel's Security Cabinet cleared the way for Ilan Grapel to return home on Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said, ending what has become an uncomfortable episode between the two allies. Grapel, 27, was arrested June 12 during the height of Egypt's uprising, which ousted President Hosni Mubarak earlier this year.

Space station will crash at end of run The International Space Station will be allowed to crash into the sea after its mission ends in about 2020 to avoid adding to the debris orbiting Earth, Russia's Federal Space Agency said. "After the ISS completes its mission, we'll have to sink it," Vitaly Davydov, deputy head of Roscosmos said Wednesday. "It can't be left in orbit because it's too complex and heavy. It could produce a lot of junk. " Space agencies from the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada jointly operate the station, which has been in orbit since 1998.

Political change is messy and unpredictable, making American Jewish supporters of Israel nervous as Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's hold on power weakens and the makeup of a new government remains deeply uncertain. "We're worried that the country is going to be taken over by an Islamist regime," said Ilana Krop Wilensik, director of the American Jewish Committee of Philadelphia and South Jersey. Egypt's 1979 treaty recognizing Israel has long been unpopular among ordinary Egyptians, and supporters of Israel in Philadelphia and across the nation worry that an Islamist government is the most likely replacement for Mubarak, a reliably pro-American despot who has cracked down on radical Muslims.

WASHINGTON - The first Middle East peace talks in nearly two years got off to a quick start Thursday, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas agreeing to meet again in two weeks and to commence work on the blueprint for a peace treaty. Netanyahu and Abbas conferred alone for 90 minutes at the State Department after group meetings that included Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and U.S. special envoy George Mitchell. Any sense of hope was tempered by the immense challenges facing the Israelis, Palestinians, and Americans and the risks of heightened violence and radicalism if they once again fail to end the conflict.

Saturday's editorial about the lack of progress toward Middle East peace ("Where is love?") noted a recent Egyptian court decision to strip citizenship from Egyptians who marry Israelis. Some context may be useful. By the way, Egypt is not the only Arab country with a peace treaty with Israel. Jordan has had one since 1994. The Egyptian court decision, which is largely symbolic, has a cruel Israeli parallel. In 2003, Israel's parliament enacted a law that prohibits any of its thousands of Christian and Muslim citizens who marry Palestinians from living together with their spouses.

An Israeli-Syrian treaty has the potential to produce beneficial results for the peace process in the entire region: stopping Syrian support for Hamas, which would promote successful Israeli-Palestinian negotiations; ending Syria's destabilization of Lebanon, including its backing of Hezbollah; and, perhaps most important, driving a wedge between Syria and Iran. Prospects have improved since President Bush has now taken a personal hand in Mideast issues by participating in Annapolis and traveling to the region.

Dear President Carter, As the former leader of the free world, you strove more than once to achieve lasting peace around the world without prejudice. At the Egypt-Israel peace treaty (1977) you led the process objectively, crucial to gaining confidence from both sides. You have long been considered a man of integrity. I am sure that you are not an anti-Semite. But why did you choose to write a book filled with inaccuracies and distortions that gives so much ammunition to extremists seeking to undermine peace in the Middle East?

Jimmy Carter has a bull's-eye on his back. Critics are taking shots. But that's OK, the former president said, because the rising volleys aimed at him are boosting sales of his latest book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. More important, the burst of publicity focuses on issues he feels need an honest airing, issues widely hashed over in Israel, but given short shrift in the United States. Targeted by defenders of Israel who say the title is inflammatory and the text full of spin, Carter, 82, is under attack for a volume whose goal is "to provoke debate" about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and offer proposals, via U.S. mediation, to revive peace talks that have been frozen for six years.