NEWTON'S LAW: BAD BLOOD AND HISTORY BETRAY AMERICAN STAKE IN PEACE TALKS

The Middle East peace conference is dominating the news this week and gives all Americans a chance to think about other things. Right?

Let's face it, the peace conference fails to attract Americans in the way the Clarence Thomas hearings did, or the William Kennedy Smith hearings will.

The talks are under way in Madrid, a city that does not exactly capture the American imagination or our desire for intrigue, at least not in the way Washington or Palm Beach might.

And the conflict, though age-old, isn't neatly packaged and titillating. There is no deceit between male and female, one telling the truth and the other one lying. Nothing lurid is uttered. The quarrel is grounded in religion and culture, which makes for dogma of a heavy sort and few exchanges that result in anything but somber reflection.

View it this way: how many people at your workplace have cornered you to talk about the peace talks? Think back several weeks. How many people at your workplace felt compelled to offer their opinions on Anita Hill?

Still, news reports were interesting on the response to the peace talks by citizens of the Middle East. In Jerusalem, Gaza City and other points on the map, persons have been fused to their televisions and hanging on every word coming from Madrid.

When something shocking was revealed before the Senate Judiciary Committee, we might have called a friend to see if they had heard it. After Yitzhak Shamir spoke on the second day of the conference, Israelis went to their rooftops to cheer.

Does this speak badly of American taste in disputes? Do our citizens find substance a cumbersome aspect of debate, while paying homage to bad taste?

We do not live as those in firing range of the Arab-Israeli conflict do. Our daily security is not threatened. In the Middle East, the opposing side of the dispute may not only believe you live in the wrong place, but that you have no right to exist.

Still, the American stake in seeing Middle East conflicts resolved is extensive and inarguable.

United States amnesia can't be so complete that we have forgotten American cruisers combing the Persian Gulf for mines, American journalists and professors being grabbed off Beirut streets, American marines lying dead in the rubble of a bombed barracks.

Our interests are in the balance in Madrid, since the disagreements that abound in the Middle East always seem to make room for United States. With the collapse of the Berlin Wall and Cold War tensions, this is what passes for a world stage, and it just loves the American act.

One has ample cause for pessimism in these peace deliberations ... too much history, too much bad blood. Settling the earthly rancor may be hard enough; settling divine differences may be impossible.

When a political spat is touched off in the United States, accusations and denunciations are dispatched through fax machines. At worst, you may get a dirty trick.

To upgrade their negotiation position at the peace talks, some Middle East factions find it preferable to dispatch terrorists. How many deaths have been counted as conferees converged on Madrid? Faced with such tactics, does peace stand a chance?

Cast against these long odds, some participants found time for an exercise limited by no international, political, cultural or religious boundary ... press baiting.

Jordan's Foreign Minister Kamel Abu-Jaber was asked by reporters if he would shake the hand of Shamir, the Israeli prime minister.

Abu-Jaber snapped back, "Everybody is so obsessed with the idea of shaking hands. There are millions of people in the world I don't shake hands with."

And on that fragile path goes the peace effort, where a handshake is beyond even grudging acceptance.

One day, Heaven willing, it may happen. The road is long, and what a handshake it would be.