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Year In Review

A moment of history in Madrid: the setting for the opening of the Mideast peace talks in October, the first direct negotiations involving Israel and Syria, Lebanon and a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation.

The 10 Most Significant Events

onventional wisdom was turned on its head
in the last 12 months: Mideast experts who
maintained that face-to-face peace talks be-
tween Israel and the Arabs were an impos-
sibility saw those negotiations become a
reality in Madrid last October. Later, the experts assert-
ed that if there was any hope for progress it would come
from the Palestinian talks, but not the Syrian front. At
year's end, the opposite is true.
It was also believed a year ago that Yitzhak Shamir's
Likud party would win easily over a disorganized La-
bor party in national elections, but in June, Yitzhak Rabin
became prime minister and made his more pragmatic

presence known in a hurry.
On the international scene, the Soviet Union, the su-
perpower whose leaders once threatened to bury the Unit-
ed States, came to an end after almost 75 years. Washington
remains confused about its role as the only superpower in
the new world order.
And those who thought the tragic lessons of the Holo-
caust had been learned decades ago reacted with horror
to reports of "ethnic cleansing" by the Serbians in the
bloodbath of what was once Yugoslavia. Once more,
world leaders reacted with rhetoric rather than inter-
vention.
Here at home, an incumbent president who was con-