A sense of Justice...

...probably not intended for a moment, but I get a strong sense of appropriate justice from the exchange of 1 Israeli held by the Palestinians for the return of roughly 1000 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

It is not just a passing, fleeting idea. It grows with thought and further threads attach.

Consider, and this is where I started, that the ratio is very roughly reflective of the number of Palestinians killed for each Israeli killed over the past 50 years.

Consider, and this was the second thread, the length of time the Palestinians have been in prison. Consider the opportunity that length of time that the Israelis have had to pursuade, condition, convince (thesaurus alternatives to "brainwash") the prisoners of the benefits of being part of Israeli society.

Consider also that if Israeli justice was right; that these prisoners are the murderers and terrorists that they claim then Palestine is deserving of having them back. I acknowledge that, as the Germans found out in France and other parts of Europe, the murderer and terrorist to an occupying force can be a hero to the oppressed.

As I said, there is a sense of appropriate justice.

A quiet reflection and retrospective...

I have to say that GWB’s acknowledgement of the distinct lack of WMD’s in Iraq has a sad feeling of ennui to it; a tired feeling of “better late than never” is completely overwhelmed by the fact that he truly believed the lie. I must add my personal acknowledgement that there is no joy – on my part at least – in knowing that along with a great many others I was right all along.

The saddest aspect to the whole sorry saga is that the success of the “Bush lie” remains. And, for the comfort of those who might be thinking I am about to deny the Holocaust I explain.

The “Bush lie” is not that 9/11 never happened, nor any of the far fanciful conspiracy theories that have sprung up around and since those tragic events. The “Bush lie” swings far more on the conflation of statism, realpolitik, and religious zealotry on the part of the few.

“Statism”, at least the context in which I prefer the term –

“… the ideology of statism that holds that Sovereignty is vested not in the people but in the national state, and that all individuals and associations exist only to enhance the power, the prestige, and the well-being of the state. The concept of statism, which is seen as synonymous with the concept of nation, and corporatism repudiates individualism and exalts the nation as an organic body headed by the Supreme Leader and nurtured by unity, force, and discipline.[4]

This first part of the conflation stems from, and clearly explains; the actions of al Qaeda; the actions taken by the US against Afghanistan and Iraq specifically (and militarily). The justifications, outcomes and consequences of all are not at issue but are now matters of history. What is critical is the confusion (of and by) the individual – such as Saddam, bin Laden, Bush and Cheney – with Nation.
“Realpolitik” –

“A usually expansionist national policy having as its sole principle advancement of the national interest.”
“Governmental policies based on hard, practical considerations rather than on moral or idealistic concerns. Realpolitik is German for “the politics of reality” and is often applied to the policies of nations that consider only their own interests in dealing with other countries.”

The combination and confusion of statism and realpolitik is understandable, especially on the part of the US as these are the foundation stones of their modern Republic. Yeah, I know that will get into the noses of quite a few from the US right but please remember, as your blood pressure rises, that that statism is exactly what you are trying to fight against.

Realpolitik comes from, rather than leads to, the opportunities presented by events. There is no question that 9/11 was seen as a prime opportunity to gain considerable advantage in the national interests of the US, quite apart from the social and national impact of the attack. Those opportunities were seen as providing potential solutions to a number of perceived and quite intractable problems looming in the not too distant future. Similarly, the political motives of binLaden and al Qaeda were aimed at consolidation and confirmation of their statism by the creation of their realpolitik.

If you detect a subtle nuance here you are not wrong. The difference between the two comes from the motives of those involved. On the US side the actions and motives of individuals were undoubtably intended as for the national good. For alQaeda’s part, the motives and actions of individuals were as equally intended for personal reasons as for the good of their “State”.

It is that point which raises the third colour in the blend. I can remember very clearly the very first, short, statement made by GWB after 9/11. I can remember the very visible wince from Cheyney as Bush stated the US’s intention to proceed with a “crusade against terrorism”, corrected part way through the phrase to “war on terrorism”. The Freudian slip of “crusade” for “war” has to be accepted as unintentional. That it slipped into the line indicates that its use had likely been discussed prior and discarded as being the wrong word to use. The religious connotation did not fit.

The implied “US-Judeo-Christianity versus Islam” would immediately become a religious war. The consequence would be to exclude many, if not all, Middle Eastern states as potential allies. On the other side, the Bush slip was exactly what alQaeda wanted. It was their intention from the beginning to make 9/11 the beginning of “the greatest ever jihad against Islam’s greatest ever enemy”. The accidental and momentary slip of the tongue was more than they could have hoped for. That the intended enemy was Israel rather than the US became forgotten from the instant the first aircraft hit.

I can not be certain, and I doubt that Bush’s memoir will cover the point, whether the intensity of the religious reaction in the US to 9/11 was intended. It best remains as an “unintended consequence”; one which had only beneficial impact for those in power in the US; one which focussed public attention on “the enemy” of Islam; and a consequence which again was entirely what alQaeda had hoped for. It is this part of the “Bush lie” that remains. It is evidenced – mostly on the right to far right – as an intense and enduring fear and hatred of ALL Islam. In saying that, I realise that it is an over-simplification because it is also strongly evident to the left as well in that part of US which strongly supports Israel. That section is not Jewish, nor Israeli. There is a strong nationalist religious element to the support of Israel in realpolitik and the American electorate.

I started with the statement that the success of the “Bush lie” still remains. It is not a lie that was spoken, nor perhaps even intended by GWB himself. I have consistently put the “Bush lie” in quotes because it is not a conscious untruth, an intended misleading. It is a consequence of a whole society (intentionally? I do not think so) taking the fact, the statism, the realpolitik, and the religious zealotry as one.

On the other side, bin Laden (if he is still alive) and alQaeda have succeeded probably beyond their wildest dreams in provoking the US people into that conflation. Their success in that regard has not reached, nor suaded, more than a very few of the people of Islam. To that extent they have failed.

They have however created a “State” which carries their power. It has no boundaries. It has no recognition as a formal “State” for that reason. It needs neither of those. They have also created a realpolitik which will have a large influence on the actions of other nations into the future. The reason for alQaeda is enough to ensure its continuance into the immediate future. The very great danger in the longer term will be realised if the realpolitik of the alQaeda jihad becomes the norm of Islam. It will become so if the mirror image of the west’s conflation (statism/realpolitik/religion) can be created from the actions of western states against Islam through alQaeda.

Allah willing it shall not.

On Predatory States...

One of the distinct drawbacks of a very wet weekend is that it allows far too much time for thinking. To be honest, this and another topic have been exercising the ol' probligo grey mush for the past few weeks, several different drafts have been written, considered and discarded in that time.

The first in these topics is the vexed question of Israel.

I am NOT going to debate it here, again, ad nausem...

Israel, as far as I am concerned, deserves everything its enemies can provide it. "Deserves" simply because of its attitude, its approach, and total lack of humanity. So too, come to think of it, do some of their friends.

Israel's enemies too, deserve the consequences of much of what happens.

As I have said previously so many times, there is no right in the Levant. There is only wrong.

In this latest stoush, there are two things which could be done, both of which would do nothing more than illustrating the futility in trying to resolve the problem.

The first is the idea of an independent inquiry into the Israeli navy boarding vessels in international waters. the thought that an enquiry could be led by Sir Geoffrey Palmer (past NZ PM, international law expert etc etc) did have its attractions. He is a man of great honesty, of great ability and a very judicious mind.

But for all the good that such an enquiry would do, Geoff, I am sure that the UN could find it a whole lot cheaper and a danged lot more effective to give you and several assistants a good long vacation somewheres a lot more pleasant. One thing is certain, any inquiry not carried out by the Israelis will carry as much weight for the Israelis as the whistling in the wind of a skeleton on the gibbets at Notting Hill.

The second idea was proposed by a Turkish MP; Deputy Prime Minister if I recollect. He proposed that the Turkish government should make a similar delivery of aid to Gaza, carried by the Turkish Navy.

Now this has very considerable potential in my mind. It would rank with NZ sending its navy to Mururoa in protest against the French wiping their nuclear arse-n-all in our back yard. But just think about it. I am sure that the Gazan government members could leave their rocket launcher alone for long enough to send an invite to the Turks for a goodwill naval visit to a Gazan port.

In reality, I suspect that some "very good friends" ( of both Turkey and Israel) will pursuade them that it would not be a good idea, and nothing will come of it.

What is far more likely is that the more unruly elements in Lebanon will once again make that small provocation that results in Israel losing its military nuts in both South Lebanon and Gaza.

ps yes there have been several minor edits to this - all on the one day.

This is the week, that was...

I was, earlier in the week, going to do a blast about an article that appeared in the Herald. After digging around, it became apparent that the only (at that time) other sources were Ha'aretz and the Beeb. There was no comment in Jpost, apart from one or two rather desultory letters to the Ed that skirted around... All of that seems to have gone, though the Beeb article still eads the news.google search engine. The Jewish Weekly also has the story - for those who might be interested.

This morning, I turn to the old fav ALDaily and there is an echo of the response I posted a couple weeks back to TF's item on narcissism.

Rather than being written by a "world reknowned expert on narcissism" (the one whose only qualification is an off-the-shelf Doctorate in "Philosophy of Physics")this is from a journalist, Emily Yoffe, who has taken the time to research

This is the cultural moment of the narcissist. In a New Yorker cartoon, Roz Chast suggests a line of narcissist greeting cards ("Wow! Your Birthday's Really Close to Mine!"). John Edwards outed himself as one when forced to confess an adulterous affair. (Given his comical vanity, the deceitful way he used his marriage for his advancement, and his self-elevation as an embodiment of the common man while living in a house the size of an arena, it sounds like a pretty good diagnosis.) New York Times critic Alessandra Stanley wrote of journalists who Twitter, "it's beginning to look more like yet another gateway drug to full-blown media narcissism." And what other malady could explain the simultaneous phenomena of Blago and the Octomom?

These days, "narcissist" gets tossed around as an all-purpose insult, a description of self-aggrandizing, obnoxious behavior.

And too, can I add, as a politically charged epithet for people whose politics are somewhat different to one's preference and whose appearance is far more widely praised than one's own.

She rather spoils the line of thought with this;

A recent study titled "Leader Emergence: The Case of the Narcissistic Leader" describes how narcissists have skills and qualities—confidence, extraversion, a desire for power—that propel them into leadership roles but that when true narcissists are in charge, other aspects of their makeup—a feeling the rules don't apply to them, a need for constant stroking—can have "disastrous consequences." Yes, we're talking about you, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. After Blagojevich was caught on tape trying to sell a Senate seat, he reveled in the opportunity to appear on talk shows, making the case that he himself was a victim—self-pity being a favorite narcissist refuge.

A line from a New York Times profile of him is as trenchant a description of narcissism as is found in most psychology textbooks: "[He] is unapologetically late to almost everything, and can treat employees with disdain, cursing and erupting in fury for failings as mundane as neglecting to have at hand at all times his preferred black Paul Mitchell hairbrush." There it all is: the sense that other people don't matter, the belief others are instruments for the narcissist's use, the self-admiration.

Well, at least she chose a valid instance.

Another of ALDaily's links led to this piece from Geoff Mulgan ; one which , I recommend, requires reading and careful thought; one which, I suggest, is in the realms of far-sighted analysis that we should see far more of in future. Yes, TF, he is a "socialist" but he does not present socialism as "the answer". He raises very valid, and to the point, questions.

The US banking system faces losses of over $3,000bn. Japan is in a depression. China is headed for zero growth. Some still hope that urgent surgery can restore the status quo. But more feel that we are at one of those rare points of inflection when nothing is the same again.

But if one dream is over, what other dreams wait in the shadows? Will capitalism adapt? Or should we be asking again one of the great questions which has animated political life for nearly two centuries: what might come after capitalism?
Only a few years ago that question had been parked, deemed about as sensible as asking what would come after electricity. Global markets had pulled China and India into their orbit, and capitalism’s triumph appeared complete, with medievalist Islam and the ragged armies that surround the G8 summits jostling to be its last enfeebled competitor. Multinational companies were said to command empires greater than most nation states, and in some accounts had won the affiliation of the masses through their brands.

Yet the lesson of capitalism itself is that nothing is permanent—“all that is solid melts into air” as Marx put it. Within capitalism there are as many forces that undermine it as there are forces that carry it forward.

His conclusion -

Capitalism’s crisis is, of course, a global one, and has shown up the limitations of the global institutions that took shape half a century ago. China is set to become a dominant player in a strengthened IMF and World Bank, followed by India and Brazil. The G20 is edging out the G8 as the club that matters. And waiting in the wings are possible new institutions to police and manage carbon, to handle everything from global migration to the regulation of biotechnology, alongside less formal institutions to help the world’s public to engage, from e-parliaments to global campaigning platforms like Awaaz, an online newspaper.

No one can know which of these possibilities will come to fruition. There are in principle an infinite number of directions social systems can take. But history suggests that at key moments evolution is highly selective. Only a few models turn out to be sustainable, with an affinity to the prevailing technologies, values and power structures.

In the first phase of the crisis the most successful claimants for support have been the big, failing (and well-connected) industries of the last era of capitalism. But the arguments are moving on—to how recovery plans can back job growth, fixing the future (as in San Francisco’s electric car infrastructures or Korea’s massive green jobs programme) rather than trying to fix the mistakes of the past. It’s not clear yet which politicians will be able to articulate a vision of a “servant capitalism” better suited to the 21st century. David Cameron has made some attempts—hard though that may sometimes be for the descendant of generations of stockbrokers. Gordon Brown is a son of the manse, but also deeply implicated in the crisis. Obama should be ideally suited to offering a new vision, yet has surrounded himself with champions of the very system that now appears to be crumbling.

The result is that a large political space is opening up. In the short run it is being filled with anger, fear and confusion. In the longer run it may be filled with a new vision of capitalism, and its relationship to both society and ecology, a vision that will be clearer about what we want to grow and what we don’t. Democracies have in the past repeatedly tamed, guided and revived capitalism. They have prevented the sale of people, of votes, public offices, children’s labour and body organs, and they have enforced rights and rules, while also pouring resources in to meet capitalism’s need for science and skills, and it has been out of this mix of conflict and co-operation that the world has achieved the extraordinary progress of the last century.

To discover what comes next, maybe we should look upwards. Skylines provide the simplest test of what a society values, and where its surpluses are controlled. A few centuries ago the greatest buildings in the world’s cities were forts, churches and temples; then for a time they became palaces. Briefly in the 19th century civic buildings, railway stations and museums overshadowed them. And then in the late 20th century everywhere they were banks. Few believe that they will be for much longer. But what will come next—great leisure palaces and sports stadiums; universities and art galleries; water towers and hanging gardens; or perhaps biotech empires? We need to rekindle our capacity to imagine, and to see through the still-gathering storm to what lies beyond.

At which point I want to return to the Emily Yoffe piece, and her conclusion.

If the observers who say that part of our economic troubles result from a mass case of narcissism, from consumers who thought they should have the house of their dreams financed on bad debt to bankers who thought they deserved eight-figure bonuses for packaging that bad debt, then perhaps we are about to be cured. Twenge and Campbell point out that the 1920s was a narcissistic era whose economic collapse led to the Great Depression and the greatest generation. Perhaps it's time to dig out those Depression-era recipes for humble pie.

Humble pie that should first be served in the Middle East.

In the simple offer of humanity...

Taking my weekly wade through WSJ turned this -

The U.S. has complained to Israel over the holdup of aid shipments to Gaza of items as basic as jam, toothpaste and toilet paper, which U.S. officials say are being frequently trapped amid an erratic decision-making process.

Howard Sumka, mission director for the United States Agency for International Development in the Palestinian territories, said senior diplomats have had to intervene with Israeli authorities, and aid workers have had to repack shipments to meet changing criteria of what qualifies as vital humanitarian aid. He said the situation hasn't improved despite U.S. efforts.

A spokesman for Israel's Ministry of Defense, Peter Lerner, said humanitarian aid is getting into Gaza every day, including 110 aid trucks on Thursday.

But he acknowledged disagreements with donor countries and aid groups over what counted as humanitarian aid. "There may be differences between what we consider basic food commodities and what the various governments and aid organizations want to bring in," said Mr. Lerner. "That's where the question marks are being raised."

On Thursday, Israel rejected a shipment of 960 boxes of tuna, canned meat, diapers, wet wipes, sterile gauze, blankets and candles, along with 184 boxes of flashlights, Mr. Sumka said. A week earlier Israel had approved the shipment, but reversed the decision Wednesday evening, he said. "When you're dealing with that kind of uncertainty it makes it hard for us to plan, it creates inefficiencies and it certainly makes it more costly to deliver the assistance," said Mr. Sumka.

Now I know that the response from many will be that Israel owes nothing to Gaza, that they are implacable enemies and all of the rest of it so "...why should they help?"

Well, in my naive simplicity, my response would be "Out of simple humanity." Forget every other "consideration" (read "excuse for not helping"), or the attribution of fault. The numbers of Gaza residents who constitute the active members of Hamas (and any other of the various criminal groups) might reach 30% (up from 10% over the past year). I have no way of knowing that truth. The fact is that a very sizeable proportion of Gaza's population are the innocents; the children for a start, and the majority of women.

That it is the deliverers of American aid that are having the problems and complaining should add some weight.

What seems to be coming through is that the Israelis are doing nothing "wrong", as such. In the same way as they never have done anything "wrong". They are just making sure that nothing goes "right" either. They have no desire to make things easy, or right, or even be helpful.

What a sorry pass...

In amongst all of the angst and hair pulling and sackcloth and ashes over the (seemingly rash) refusal to serve two Israeli women, I can but wonder if the same hue and cry would have erupted if a Jewish café owner had refused to serve two Muslim women in hijab.

After the festivities...

We (SWMBO and I as the rest of the family now have their own paths to walk) went north to Opo the Monday before Christmas. Work was done plastering the carport wall to get that all sealed off (to little avail but that will take another post)and painted.

Christmas dinner was enjoyable - roast lamb and veg, Demifroix ( I hate with intensity people who call it "demi-freddo" or "semi-freddo") made with apricot which was not an outstanding success.

Then we got into the serious business...

It ran through my mind while driving home that there is so much that happens in this world which, on reflection, matters very little.

Instances that come to mind -

The shenanigans around the Senate seat vacated by OHB.

The Israeli government getting into yet another "Wag the Dog" war with Gaza because their popularity with the electorate was dropping fast just a few weeks out from an election. Where did that deja vu flash come from?

GWB frantically trying to find something that people will remember him for. He found it - in the form of most of the North Pacific. What right he has to donate that area to posterity I don't know but I guess that after having the crap nuclear bombed out of it in the '50s and '60s there is little left there of real economic value.

Pontifications on the future of mankind from all manner of people from Il Papa on downward.

How education should be working and isn't. Interesting one this, as it is fairly close to the ol' cockles. Not worth pursuing though as half the world would not care and the other half would misinterpret the intent, and then half would think it a darned fine idea and spend the next 20 years and millions of bucks trying to make it work, which it probably wouldn't because the teachers think it is a stink idea anyway.

And so the list goes on. It does get quite depressing really.

Highlights? Walking to the Waiotemarama Falls. Took film rather than digital and might post up when I get the film back. Sometime. Seeing my sister for a second, no sorry third, Christmas dinner. Had Vichyssoise, boerewurst and salad for lunch. Nice. I did not take a dip in Stephan's moat. Biggest highlight was my first swim in 3 years, since Feb 06 in fact. Can't omit the woodchop on NYD. Always good fun, and the hangi was a good lunch for $8 a pop.

It just gets sadder and sadder...

This actually appeared as a small para side-page in Granny Herald on Saturday. This is the first mention I have found on the net...

U.S. to Sell Bunker-Busting Bombs to Israel

by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz


(IsraelNN.com) The U.S. government has agreed to sell 1,000 satellite-guided "mini-bunker-buster" bombs to Israel. Meanwhile, a U.S. Defense Department official on Friday hinted at informal nuclear defense arrangements with Israel.

Boeing's Guided Bomb Unit (GBU)-39 bomb, weighing in at just 113 kilograms (250 pounds), was developed for penetrating fortified targets located underground. The U.S. decision to sell the munitions to Israel was somewhat of a retreat from a refusal last week to supply the IDF with the more powerful two-ton GBU-29 bunker-busters, despite earlier commitments to do so. In 2005, the Bush administration authorized the sale of 100 GBU-29s to Israel in a proposed deal worth around $30 million. The currently approved deal will be worth a total of $77 million.

Hey, now let's just measure these two deals up.

Deal 1 - 100 2000lb bombs for $30M = $150 per lb
Deal 2 - 1000 250lb bombs for $77M = $308 per lb

Hey, Israel!!!! You is getting done! Like a dinner!!

And let us not forget the reason for the sale either...

Oh dear oh dear oh dear!

Ban Ki-Moon will be in trouble with the US - Israel Friendship lobbies. REAL trouble!

UN boss Ban Ki-moon is deeply concerned at Israel's decision to build 884 more houses in east Jerusalem, which is "contrary to international law," his press office said Monday in a statement.

"The secretary general is deeply concerned at the recent announcement by the Israeli government to invite new tenders for construction in Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem," the statement added.

"The government of Israel's continued construction in settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory is contrary to international law and to its commitments under the roadmap and the Annapolis process," it said.

Drafted by the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, the roadmap for Middle East peace calls for a halt to Jewish settlement activity in Palestinian territories and an end to Palestinian attacks against Israel.

The plan has made little progress since it was drafted in 2003, but Israel and the Palestinians agreed last November to relaunch it during a conference in the US city of Annapolis that restarted the peace process after a seven-year hiatus.

Sunday, Israel announced plans to build 884 more houses in occupied and annexed east Jerusalem...

Condemnation from the US? "Not a sausage".

The Eleventh Hour Epiphany?

What a pity, what a very great pity that this Administration left this move until now. How much different might the world be if this had happened in 2000?

US President George W Bush told Palestinians on Thursday he believed they would sign a peace treaty with Israel within a year that would give them their own state.

Challenging sceptics on the first visit to the West Bank city of Ramallah by a US president, he told a news conference with President Mahmoud Abbas: "I believe it's going to happen, that there will be a signed peace treaty by the time I leave office."

In some of the boldest language he has used since hosting a summit at Annapolis in the United States in November that relaunched peace negotiations after a seven-year hiatus, Bush added: "I am confident that with proper help the state of Palestine will emerge."

Officials have said that any treaty signed by the time Bush steps down next January would not lead to the immediate creation of a new state. A number of formalities would remain and Israel has made it clear it will not end its occupation of the West Bank until it is sure its own territory is safe from attack.

Bush also said that he was unsure that the isolation of the Gaza Strip, a major part of any future state, could be solved within the year. Abbas lost control of the enclave in June to Hamas Islamists who are fighting Israeli forces. Hamas hostility to the peace talks is a major obstacle to any peace deal.

Bush said Washington, Israel's closest ally and now a strong backer of Abbas' administration, stood ready to provide both political and economic backing but that Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert must "come together to make hard choices".

Speaking at the Muqata compound where the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was besieged by Israeli forces just a few years ago, Arafat's successor Abbas hailed Bush as the first US president to commit fully to back a Palestinian state.

The reticence of the US to tackle the problems of the Middle East head-on, Israel and Palestine in particular, in a fair and rational manner has been one of my major criticisms of successive administrations going right back to Carter and the Camp David meetings.

Will this time around the mulberry bush be any different? Certainly I fervently hope. Reality tells me not to hold my breath.

Annapolis 2007

The new edition of The Economist has as its cover story "Mr Palestine" with a very formal photo of GWB.

The accompanying story is an interesting, and thorough examination of the possible directions that the coming Annapolis Summit might take.

What is most heartening is that the Economist's writer has penned exactly the scenario for which I would hope. Starting with the idea that all of those involved - Olmert, Abbas, and to a much less extent Bush - have their hands tied to explosive political realities of their own there would seem to be even less likelihood of Annapolis being any more successful than Camp David (remember the new settlements?) or Oslo.

So what is needed? "How is about a new approach?" says The Economist.

...unless George W. Solomon turns up too
In this speech Mr Bush needs to set out forthrightly America's own plan for dividing Palestine. That would mark an historic change. In the past—in Madrid in 1991, for example, and at Camp David in 2000—the Americans asked the Israelis and Palestinians to thrash out their differences on their own. But they can't. The gap is too wide, and even when their respective leaders want to narrow it neither dares move towards the other for fear of the uproar from the ideological bitter-enders at home. The existence of an American blueprint that commanded international support would, however, immediately transform the political dynamic of both societies, fortifying the moderates and pushing the hardliners to the margins.

Although it would be too much to expect Mr Bush to unfurl a map at Annapolis, he could come quite close. For a start, he should make it clear that when America talks of a two-state solution, it has in mind a border based on the pre-1967 line. Three years ago Mr Bush said in a public letter to Ariel Sharon that it would be unrealistic to expect Israel to evacuate all the dense settlement blocks it has planted in the West Bank. Fine. But since most settlers live close to the old border, he can now tell Israel that it cannot keep more than a few percentage points—say 5% or so—of the West Bank, and that it must offer the Palestinians land from its own side in compensation. On refugees, Mr Bush should say, as Bill Clinton did, that their right to “return” should be exercised in the new Palestine and not in pre-1967 Israel: that is a bitter pill but it is the logic of a peace based on partition. And Israel too must accept a bitter potion: Jerusalem, the beating heart of both peoples, will have to be the capital of both.

If Mr Bush gives this speech, Mr Olmert and Mr Abbas will wax furious. They might agree with him in their hearts, but if only for domestic political consumption they will have to accuse the American president of setting an ambush, bullying the little guys, prejudging the final-status issues and riding roughshod over the views and rights of the people most directly affected. These fulminations can be safely ignored. Israel and the Palestinian territories alike are full of politicians who will tell you knowingly but off the record that only a deal along the lines described above stands the remotest chance of bringing permanent peace. It is high time the superpower and the rest of the world threw their weight behind such a plan. The photo-op at Annapolis may be just the place to do it.

I agree.

I also will not hold my breath. The nature of the American electoral lobbies is such that GWB will be too conscious of the possible effects of such a move on the election of a Repub President in 2008.