AREA RESIDENTS DISCUSS THE PROMISE OF MIDEAST PEACE

Monday's handshakes are history. It's the hoped-for future that intrigues area residents and educators, who view the PLO-Israeli peace accord with optimism.

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat once bitter foes shook hands in Washington before a cheering White House crowd after the signing of the pact between the Jewish state and the Palestinian organization.

On Tuesday, Israel and Jordan signed a framework for a peace treaty.

"Of course, everyone is hopeful, but only time will tell," said Cape Girardeau businessman Martin Hecht, who is of the Jewish faith and a longtime benefactor of Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A synagogue on the school's Mount Scopus campus is named in honor of the Hecht family, whose efforts raised money for the building's construction.

Hecht, who estimates he has visited Israel at least 40 times, said it's difficult to predict the future of Arab-Israeli relations. "We just don't know how it is going to play."

Hecht said he spoke Monday to friends at Hebrew University. "They say it is just about evenly divided (between pact supporters and opponents). I think they all said it is going to be tough. It is going to take time."

For Marvin Swanson, director of international program development at Southeast Missouri State University, the dialogue of peace brings back memories of a different sort. Swanson, who has visited the Middle East several times, remembers crossing the Jordanian-Israeli border in 1964.

Swanson said he crossed into Israel from Jordan. "You couldn't go from Israel to Jordan at that time," he recalled.

Neither nation recognized the other. As a result, when the border guard asked about his destination, Swanson answered, "I am going out there."

"You carried your bag and you walked out about 100 feet and you met an Israeli soldier and he would ask where you came from," said Swanson.

"You couldn't say you came from Jordan," he explained. Swanson simply told the soldier he had come from "over there."

Then there was his visit to Jerusalem in the mid-1970s. He was walking to his hotel when a bomb exploded on a motorcycle about 50 feet away. "People in the hotel just shrugged their shoulders and said you just lived with (the violence) every day."

Swanson said he hopes the peace accord will rejuvenate a region where money has been spent on armaments rather than communities and schools.

"Some of the most beautiful cities in the Near East have been destroyed because of this" Arab-Israeli conflict, he said.

Maqsood Choudary, a native of Pakistan and an assistant professor of political science at Southeast, welcomes the promise of peace. "If you look at the situation as it was for the last 45 years, I would call it a major breakthrough," he said.

"I would call it a first step toward peace," said Choudary, who teaches a course in Middle East politics. "I never thought I would see it in my lifetime.

I would say the possibility of peace in that part of the world is very high."

Choudary envisions that most of the Arab countries, including Syria and Lebanon, could end up signing peace accords with Israel. Iraq, however, is not likely to follow suit, he said. "Probably Saddam (Hussein) will take a different course," said Choudary.

While Israel and the PLO have signed a peace pact, details of implementing the agreement must still be worked out, the Southeast professor said.

The initial accord gives Palestinians immediate administrative control over Gaza and Jericho and calls for negotiations within two years on the future of Jerusalem and the PLO's quest for its own state on Israeli-held land.

Choudary said Arafat is talking of a Palestinian state while Rabin's view is that of a single state, but with Palestinian self rule.

In addition to those differences, Choudary said there are political and religious groups both in Israel and the Arab world who oppose the accord.

Still, surveys have found that 60 percent of Israeli residents and a like number of those living on the West Bank support efforts for peace, he said.

As to Monday's historic gathering at the White House, Choudary said, "The ice has been broken and now they have to move forward."