JERUSALEM — A white delivery van parks on a Monday morning in front of a building in downtown Buenos Aires that houses many of Argentina's Jewish organizations. A few minutes later, a quarter-ton of explosives in the van are detonated, demolishing the building. Ninety-six people are killed, 230 are wounded.

A day later, a man believed to be Lebanese and using a crudely forged U.S. passport boards a small commuter plane in Panama--and shortly after takeoff blows it up with a bomb he is carrying. Twenty other people die with him--12 of them Jewish businessmen.

In London a week later, a well-dressed, middle-aged woman described as "Middle Eastern" or "Mediterranean" parks her car next to the Israeli Embassy, tells a police officer she is visiting friends next door and walks off, a department store shopping bag in hand. Minutes later, the car explodes, heavily damaging the embassy and wounding 14 people.

At 12:45 the next morning, another car bomb goes off outside a north London building housing Jewish community organizations. Five people are wounded.

From four terrorist strikes in nine days, profoundly troubling questions arise:

Are Jews around the world--not only Israelis but all Jews--now targets in a new surge of Middle East terrorism, a campaign able to strike globally with deadly suddenness? Can the Middle East peace process, still fragile despite the breakthroughs of the past year, survive such murderous attacks? Or will terrorism push the region toward war once again?

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, speaking to his colleagues at a special Cabinet meeting last week, responded to those questions with characteristic bluntness:

"Jews once again are being killed precisely because they are Jews. The motive this time is to halt the search for peace. We know where the trail leads. Israel will do all within its power to find and punish those responsible for these bombings. Peace must not succumb to terror."

Yet the bombings showed how vulnerable the Jewish communities of the Diaspora are, whether in security-conscious Britain or remote Panama.

In the sober judgment of Israeli and Western intelligence analysts and counterterrorism specialists, any Jewish group virtually anywhere in the world is now a potential target, with Israeli and high-profile Jewish institutions at a significantly higher risk.