
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, July 28, 1994                   TAG: 9407280064
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A14   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

MIDEAST

PEACE, like war, has a momentum that can draw along reluctant participants and rapidly leave behind those stuck in the past.

The historic handshake Monday, between King Hussein of Jordan and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel, not only marked the end of formal hostilities. (Their nations hadn't really been hostile for some time.)

Coming after Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat shook hands last year - on the White House lawn as well - the Israel-Jordan truce also increases pressure on Syria to join the fun.

Too, it will continue the marginalization of despicable enemies of peace, such as those who exploded bombs in London Tuesday, and in Argentina a week before, killing 95 people at a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.

Once able to block accommodation by inflaming passions and killing moderation (and moderates), the extremists now are losing their grip.

A formal peace treaty between Israel and Jordan has yet to be worked out. Very hard, complicated issues, such as water rights and administration in Jerusalem, remain to be worked out. But the benefits of peace, including expanded commerce, are clear to more and more residents of the region.

The trend is clear, too, including presumably to Syrian President Hafez Assad. The good news is that the company of rejectionists, once including every Arab country, the Soviet Union and Palestinians, is shrinking. Those taking chances for peace, meantime, are no longer isolated. May they stay on a roll.

by CNB