c. 1998 Religion News Service

(J.J. Goldberg is the author of”Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish Establishment,”published by Addison-Wesley.)

UNDATED _ Sunday (Sept. 13) marks five years since Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shook hands on the White House lawn, solemnizing an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement secretly negotiated that summer in Oslo, Norway. It was a gesture intended to usher in a new era of reconciliation for the peoples of the Middle East.

Since then, Americans have looked on in horrified fascination as the region has careened from hope to despair, from promises of a new dawn to acts of horrific violence. We have watched sadly as the promise of a new alliance of Middle East moderates _ uniting Israel with the likes of Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and even Saudi Arabia _ has begun to unravel in mutual recriminations.

Increasingly, however, it seems Americans can no longer view the cycle of Middle East terror as a spectator sport. As we saw in August, with the bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa and retaliatory U.S. missile strikes in Afghanistan and Sudan, America is now a fully engaged player in this deadly game.

A few numbers illustrate the depth of our involvement. At least 40 persons are currently imprisoned in this country, convicted or awaiting trial, after being arrested overseas for acts of terrorism against Americans abroad.

About half as many persons are under investigation or awaiting deportation for acts in this country to aid overseas terrorist groups, particularly the Palestinian Islamic group Hamas.

Most chilling, and least discussed, are the 20 persons currently imprisoned in this country for involvement in planned or actual acts of Middle East-related terrorism on American soil.

Since 1990, America has faced a small but steady series of efforts to bring Middle Eastern terror to these shores, resulting in 11 known deaths so far. They include:

_ The 1990 assassination in New York of Rabbi Meir Kahane, a controversial political figure in Israel.

_ The 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York, which left six dead and 1,000 injured.

_ The foiled 1993 plot to bomb a series of public buildings and tunnels in New York.

_ The 1993 shooting spree that left two dead outside Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Virginia.

_ The 1994 shooting of a van load of Hasidic students on the Brooklyn Bridge that left one dead and one critically wounded.

_ The 1997 shooting spree atop the Empire State Building in which one tourist was killed and seven were wounded.

_ The foiled 1997 plot to bomb a Brooklyn subway.

Those implicated include Palestinians, Egyptians, Pakistanis, Sudanese and one native-born American. All have been Muslims. Some appeared to be loners, but others were part of an organized group, the followers of the Egyptian-born cleric Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman.

Rahman, in turn, had apparent links to the Afghan-based terror network financed by Osama bin Laden.

Whatever their organizational links, however, all appeared to be motivated by a desire either to kill Jews or to punish the United States for its alliance with Israel.

This violence will almost certainly continue.

Regardless of whether the Israeli-Palestinian peace process succeeds or fails, Islamic extremists will continue to reject Israel and vent their fury on its supporters, the United States being most prominent. Given the state of modern communications and transportation, such acts can never be entirely prevented.

We can, however, reduce them. But doing so will require a coordinated, long-range effort to infiltrate and break up terror networks, identify perpetrators, improve coordination and information-sharing among our security agencies and with our allies, and beef up security at our borders.

For such a program to succeed, we need the cooperation of our allies, particularly moderates in the Arab and Muslim world. Without the help of friends like Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, our battle against the bin Ladens of the world will be at best fragmented and episodic.

Right now, America’s relations with its moderate Arab and Muslim allies are at their lowest ebb in a generation. None of our erstwhile Gulf War allies publicly supported us in our August missile strikes. The reason, diplomatic sources agree, is the breakdown of the Israel-Palestinian peace process.

America has a direct, urgent interest in improving the atmosphere between Israel and its allies. The Oslo accord may have been intended to bring a better life to Israelis and Palestinians. But its failure, it now appears,threatens all of us.

IR END GOLDBERG