Those who followed last week's "Values Voter Summit" of the Family Research Council, which had invited Republican presidential candidates to address an audience of moral conservatives, might consider this —

Former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani once said, "Most of [Bill] Clinton's policies are similar to most of mine." On another occasion, he highly praised the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, and offered up a citywide proclamation honoring the infamous racist eugenicist.

As governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney used his executive power to unconstitutionally and unlawfully institute gay marriage; signed into law socialized medicine, complete with taxpayer-funded abortions; presided over the thorough implementation of the radical gay agenda in the public schools; and signed a permanent "assault" weapons ban.

John McCain and Fred Thompson spearheaded passage of the so-called "campaign finance reform" which was originally known as "McCain-Feingold-Thompson," the worst-ever attack on free political speech in American history.

All of these candidates have either an outright pro-abortion position or a Stephen A. Douglas-like position that puts states' rights ahead of the God-given — and therefore unalienable — rights to life and liberty.

What does this have to do with the Family Research Council's so-called "Values Voter Summit" that just concluded in our nation's capital? FRC gave each of these candidates the use of its platform. It gave each of them a photo-op receiving a standing ovation from a crowd identified as strongly pro-life and supportive of the God-ordained natural family. Was this intended to buttress the arguments of those who claim, for instance, that Rudy Giuliani has support from moral conservatives, despite his brazenly pro-abortion, pro-gay positions?

Now, you may ask, "Didn't they have to give pro-abortion candidates a platform, in the interest of fairness and balance?" No, they did not. One of the foundational principles of our republic is the right of free association. Nothing in the law requires that an organization surrender this freedom.

And if fairness and balance were what they wanted, why did they repeatedly refuse to invite one particular candidate: Dr. Alan Keyes? For decades, Dr. Keyes has boldly and courageously fought for everything the FRC claims to represent.

The contradictions get worse.

For weeks prior to the event — in advertising, and in the radio and television pronouncements of FRC leaders — FRC claimed that all the candidates in both parties were invited. This claim was patently false, since Dr. Keyes was excluded, and yet they refused to correct it even after its untruthfulness was pointed out to them repeatedly.

Keyes staffers, seeing the claims that "all" the candidates had been invited, even the Democrats, thought perhaps an invitation for Ambassador Keyes had been lost in the mail. It could happen. So, they contacted FRC organizers just to be sure there was no misunderstanding. To their surprise, no such misplaced invitation had ever been offered. And none was ever forthcoming.

The explanation given was that the event had been planned for months, that Keyes had entered the race too late, and that no slot in the speaking schedule could possibly be found for him. A shocking claim, considering the fact that Fred Thompson entered the race barely a week before Keyes, that Rudy Giuliani confirmed his attendance only days prior to the event, and that both were given every consideration. Also, throw in the fact that a long list of little-known pundits and organizational functionaries somehow merited large blocks of time in front of the C-SPAN cameras.

The repeated claim that this was some sort of a scheduling conflict doesn't stand up to the facts. Not only was Alan Keyes not allowed to speak, but his name was also left out of the straw poll conducted in association with the event. Yet Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Dennis Kucinich, Joe Biden, and Christopher Dodd all merited inclusion.

Now, any organization can invite whomever they wish to events they sponsor. They can list anyone they want in their straw polls. But that's not really the point. What really matters is that Christian organizations have an obligation to the truth. By claiming an invitation was extended to all candidates, while excluding Dr. Keyes, organizers of the event gave a false impression. Among those who support their organization are many admirers of Dr. Keyes, people who would be outraged to know of his exclusion. At one point on Saturday, C-SPAN erroneously displayed a list that showed Dr. Keyes as a speaker at the event on the afternoon of Friday, Oct. 19. Did the organizers intentionally provide incorrect information, again in order to give their supporters a false impression of their treatment of Dr. Keyes? God knows the answers to these questions, and in the end His judgment will surely prevail.

So, what is a principled moral conservative to do? The same thing Alan Keyes has advised all along: Ignore the self-appointed gatekeepers in the media and in the political parties. Reject the corruption of our free and open political process by those who are aiming for a preordained result, before a single sovereign citizen has even cast a ballot. Help us restore an America that is of, by, and for the people.

If you haven't signed the Pledge for America's Revival, do it today. Then keep it. Work hard to spread the word and bring others into this critically important effort. This is the only way we're going to defeat the lies, deception, and corrupt manipulation of our political process. Stand up and take your country back.

BIRTHING A PALESTINIAN STATE AT ANNAPOLIS?

By Professor Louis Rene Beres
Department of Political Science, Purdue University

15 October 2007

As the Bush administration prepares to create a Palestinian state next month in Annapolis, an ironic fact remains widely unnoticed. It is that all "official" as well as unofficial Palestinian groups remain sworn enemies of the United States. All Palestinian terror groups, including the American-supported Fatah "government" of the Palestinian Authority, are quietly but very determinably expanding ties to al-Qaeda. There is no doubt about this.

Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda all share a deep ideological and religious hatred of the United States. Operationalizing this common antipathy, these kindred foes have now gone beyond a mere conceptual affinity to active field cooperation. Indeed, with growing commitments to shared weaponry and information as well as to the joint establishment of safe houses and crucial tactical resources, such ties could soon produce nuclear and/or biological mass-destruction attacks against major American cities.

Why, then, do we Americans sponsor such a misconceived "peace conference" in Annapolis? Immediately after September 11th, Hamas audaciously approached al-Qaeda, and so did Arafat's own Fatah. Of course, Fatah had previously embraced "martyrdom operations" against Israeli civilians. Although Palestinian terrorists hardly needed al-Qaeda to prod them to commit further assaults of unspeakable cruelty, the example of September 11th offered them unprecedented encouragement. In its interrelated cell and command structures, al-Qaeda has drawn special comfort from Palestinian collaborators' grateful references to the openly exterminatory Hadith: "Oh Allah, annihilate the Jews and their supporters...."

The Jihadist idea of killing for the presumed sake of Islam is glorified both by all the principal Palestinian terror groups and by al-Qaeda. Both also approve of certain religion-based killing within the Islamic community. Both describe Muslims who allegedly collaborate with the United States as murtaddun (apostates) and both prescribe the sentence of murtadd harbi; to wit, the "ally with Satan" is given a fatwa, a death-sentence.

The relevant Qur'anic verse is this: "The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Prophet and strive to make mischief in the land, is only this - that they should be murdered or crucified, or their hands and feet should be cut off on opposing sides...." There is no difference made here between man and woman: "It is permissible to shed the blood of a woman who is a heretic (harbiyya), even if her fighting is limited to singing." And yet, President Bush seeks a Palestinian state at Annapolis.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, which is almost always unwise, al-Qaeda's hatred of the United States has little to do with American support for Israel. If Israel ceased to exist, al-Qaeda's contempt for America would surely continue. The true "problem" lies in the "sin" of America's ties to "apostates and criminals." This refers to those who rule in such Islamic countries as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan, the Emirates and Pakistan.
On December 2, 2002, al-Qaeda first announced the establishment of the "Islamic Al-Maida Organization in Palestine."

This announcement declared "a vow of allegiance to the Emir of the Mujahideen, the leader Osama bin Laden, by means of whom Allah strengthened the Nation of Islam." Calling for an end to regimes that "serve only the murderous Jews and the Great Satan," it ended with an unambiguous plea to "our brothers in Islam in Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia to attack the American interests and the heretical institutions of apostasy. ...Death to the Jews and Zionism; death to America; strength to Allah, Allah is great, and victory to Islam."

Al-Qaeda now operates less than secretly in the West Bank (Judea/Samaria) and altogether openly in Hamas-controlled Gaza. Years ago, Yasser Arafat first imported Hezbollah fighters to assist with terror attacks against Israel. Today, Osama bin Laden's Islamist fighters are an integral part of the Islamist insurgent mix.

Yasser Arafat first gathered together a diverse collection of Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah, Popular Front - General Command, various Iraqi military intelligence units (Palestinian terrorists had always been extremely close to Saddam Hussein, even sending Palestine Liberation Army units to help torture Kuwaitis in 1991), the pro-Iraqi Arab liberation Front, and, since April 2002, al-Qaeda.

To be sure, this very same crosscut of Islamist terrorist groups also exists within the United States, although here they function "only" as sleeper cells. Absolutely none of this seems to have been understood by President Bush or Secretary of State Rice, who now offer advanced military assistance to one Palestinian terror group (Fatah) against another (Hamas).

How can we possibly support creation of a Palestinian state at Annapolis? Any war requires us to distinguish friend from foe. Joint Palestinian/al-Qaeda teams are currently planning cooperative mega-terror strikes against both Israel and the United States. Isn't it time, therefore, for Washington to acknowledge that the so-called "Road Map" is a disingenuous bit of cartography ("Land For Nothing"), and that any further empowering of Palestinian terror organizations will only add to the power of al-Qaeda? With such an indispensable acknowledgment, America could finally begin to recognize that the so-called Middle East Peace Process has plainly undermined our national security, and that birthing a Palestinian terror state from the still-living body of Israel would be a very grave error.

LOUIS RENÉ BERES, Professor of International Law
Princeton (Ph.D., 1971), publishes very widely on strategic and legal aspects of terrorism. The author of some of the first major books on nuclear war and nuclear terrorism, he has counseled various agencies of government in Washington and Jerusalem.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Annapolis Summit: Israel Submit, or Die.

I would really like to know what Condoleeza Rice is smoking. It's obviously some good stuff.

"Pass the Chronic won't you please?"

Her assertions that it is "time for the establishment of a Palestinian state," and "We frankly have better things to do than invite people to Annapolis for a photo op," are just amazingly stupid. Perhaps this goes hand in glove with the fact that her boss is also incredibly stupid, or else malicious when it comes to Israel in particular, and the Middle East in general.

True, the U.S. really should have better things to do than invite people to Annapolis for a photo shoot. But those things should not include forcing the establishment of yet another terrorist state in the Middle East.

There is already a "Palestinian" state. It's called the Kingdom of Jordan.

Once again, I have to bring in the picture of a rabid poodle on crack. This, ladies and gentlemen is Condoleeza Rice. Jumping up and down, drooling at the prospect of ruining the Jewish nation for the purposes of going down in history as "bringing peace to the Middle East." Not just this, but it is obvious that the Bush administration is desperately trying to get this done before his term in office is over. If he can't get it done, well then history will view him as a failure in not just this, but in most aspects of his Presidency. He most certainly will go down as one of the most unpopular Presidents ever.

But now, instead of seizing an opportunity to at least appear somewhat savvy, and telling the Arabs where they can stick it...the Americans are falling all over themselves in an effort to cave to every demand the Muslims want. All in the name of making peace.

However, this like so many other Arab Muslim "negotiations" is an all or nothing deal. Submit or die.

Rice's rabbit hole
Caroline Glick, THE JERUSALEM POST
October 5, 2007

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is moving boldly down the rabbit hole. Next week, Rice is due back in the Middle East for meetings in Jerusalem and Ramallah. The purpose of her upcoming visit, like her previous ones, will be to pressure the Olmert government and the Fatah terror organization to reach "substantive agreements" that she'll be able to present to the world at her peace summit in Maryland next month.

It is far from clear what American interests Rice is advancing with her unswerving effort to reach a peace accord between Israel and Fatah. Indeed, Rice's efforts are detrimental to US interests in the region.

On Tuesday, 77 senators signed a letter to Rice regarding her plans for the summit. Among other things, the senators called on the Arab states, which Rice hopes will participate, to "recognize Israel's right to exist and not use such recognition as a bargaining chip for future Israeli concessions."

The senators' warning was well placed. Far from cooperating with the US, the Arab world is undercutting its policies. Not only are the Arabs - including Egypt and Jordan - distancing themselves from Israel; in a direct slap at the US, the Arabs are subverting the US's goal of isolating Hamas. Rather than blackball the jihadist movement, the Arab states led by Egypt and Saudi Arabia are devoting themselves to bringing about a rapprochement between Fatah and Hamas.

Unfortunately, due to Rice's missteps, the US today has little influence over the Arab states. Washington's primary diplomatic leverage over the Arabs stems from its ability to confer legitimacy on them. The US could have used this leverage if it had stated from the outset that it would only invite states to the Middle East conference that support the US's goals of isolating Hamas and accepting Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.

But rather than condition their invitation, Rice and President George W. Bush made it clear from the outset that they want Arab states to participate in the summit. In so doing, the US turned the turned the tables on itself. Now it is the Arabs who by accepting or rejecting the US offer will confer legitimacy on Washington. Needless to say, in the interests of securing their participation, states like Saudi Arabia and Egypt will not be called to task for their sponsorship of Hamas or their hostility toward Israel.

So the US has been weakened just by organizing the conference. Yet, if there were any chance that the conference next month in Annapolis could yield real progress toward peace, then at least the Arabs' humiliation of Washington could be said to have been worth it.

Given that since the failed Camp David summit in 2000 the Palestinians have yet to make one substantive concession to Israel, it is clear that the only way the upcoming conference can succeed in advancing peace is if the Palestinians make some dramatic concession to Israel.

But there is absolutely no chance that the Palestinians will be forthcoming. Fatah Chairman Mahmoud Abbas led Fatah to electoral defeat to Hamas in 2006 and to surrender in Gaza in June. The only reason that Abbas remains in power in Judea and Samaria is because the IDF is maintaining security there.

The weak, ineffectual Abbas has no ability to agree to Israeli offers that Yasser Arafat rejected. In addition to Arafat's legacy, Abbas has Hamas to contend with. Any major concessions to Israel would imperil his rule - and his life.

Over the past week, Abbas announced his adherence to maximal Palestinian demands from Israel. These include the full transfer of sovereignty over the Temple Mount to the Palestinians; the complete surrender of Judea and Samaria to the Palestinians; and an Israeli acceptance of the so-called "right of return" that would force Israel to accept millions of foreign Arabs as immigrants within its truncated borders. Abbas's stances are a reflection of his inability to make any concessions for peace.

The failure of Rice's summit will directly benefit Hamas, which will be able to say that as it had warned, diplomacy is pointless. Understanding this, Abbas himself has let it be known that he is negotiating with Hamas. Then too, ahead of his meeting this past Wednesday with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Abbas dispatched his representatives to threaten Israel with war.

On Tuesday, Abbas confidante and representative in negotiations with Hamas Azzam al-Ahmed told reporters, "If we don't prepare well for the conference so that it will result in something positive, the repercussions will be more dangerous than what happened after the failure of Camp David."

Hamas is not the only actor that will be strengthened by the failure of the summit. Anti-American, jihadist forces throughout the Arab world will similarly benefit. Like Hamas, they will be able to say, "We told you so." America's humiliation will also weaken liberal democratic voices in the Arab world. With America perceived as weak and incompetent, they will feel compelled to join the anti-American bandwagon.

RICE IS dragging Israel with her in her madcap descent down the diplomatic rabbit hole - and not for the first time. Rice has a record of forcing Israel to sacrifice its security in the interest of her "peace" processes.

In November 2005, Rice coerced then-prime minister Ariel Sharon into accepting her agreement on the passages joining Gaza to Egypt and Israel. That agreement denied Israel the ability to prevent terrorists and arms from being smuggled into Gaza. This week's Egyptian agreement to allow some 90 Hamas terrorists - many of whom underwent military training in Iran</span> and Syria - to enter Gaza was easily implemented in spite of Israeli objections in large part as a consequence of Rice's heavy-handed treatment of Israel.

So too, Rice forced Israel to agree to have US Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton train and arm Fatah forces in Gaza. That disastrous plan led to the indirect US arming of Hamas when Fatah forces surrendered their weapons to Hamas without a fight in June. And of course, Rice was the architect of the cease-fire with Hizbullah last year that has enabled the Iranian terror group to rearm and to reassert its control over south Lebanon.

ALTHOUGH THE content of the talks is officially secret, various leaks make the depth of Israeli concessions clear. Israel is agreeing to transfer sovereignty over Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem to the Palestinians and to renounce its sovereignty over the Temple Mount; Olmert and his colleagues have agreed to surrender more than 90 percent of Judea and Samaria to the Palestinians while destroying most of the Israeli communities there; and Israel is agreeing to certain "symbolic" concessions regarding the so-called "right of return."

In short, Olmert is regurgitating former prime minister and current Defense Minister Ehud Barak's offers to Arafat at Camp David and Taba from seven years ago.

Many on the Left argue that since Israel offered these concessions in the past, the fact that the government is returning them to the bargaining table today is nothing to get excited about. This is untrue.

There is a huge difference between the situation in 2000 and today. Seven years ago, Barak's offer of territory was based on the expectation that in exchange for territory the Palestinians would eschew terror and live at peace with Israel. Today, after seven years of war that was largely directed by Fatah, after Hamas's takeover of Gaza and Iran's takeover of Hamas, this expectation is no longer realistic. By offering Barak's concessions for a second time, Olmert isn't simply offering land. He is sending the message that Israel neither expects nor demands that the Palestinian state live at peace with Israel.

Perhaps Israel's greatest diplomatic failure since 2000 has been its failure to disavow Barak's offers and remove them from the negotiating table. Once Arafat refused Barak's far-reaching concessions and chose instead to launch a war against the Jewish state, Israel had numerous opportunities to make clear these concession were no longer on offer. Disavowing them is crucial not simply because they are diplomatically unwise. They are strategically suicidal.

As Israel's experience in south Lebanon and Gaza show clearly, areas that Israel vacates become terrorist enclaves. Given Abbas's embrace of terrorism and his political weakness, it is absolutely clear that an Israeli withdrawal from Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem will render these areas terror bases as well. Yet here the consequences will be far worse that those of previous withdrawals. An Israeli surrender of Judea, Samaria and parts of Jerusalem will divest Israel of the ability to defend itself.

Although theoretically attractive, it is impossible to partition Jerusalem between Arab and Jewish neighborhoods because there is no geographical distinction between Arab and Jewish neighborhoods. Beyond that, if Jerusalem is partitioned, the Arabs with Israeli ID cards will move to the Jewish neighborhoods and Arabs from Judea will flood the Arab neighborhoods. Far from strengthening the Jewish character of the Jewish half of the city, a partition will destroy Jewish Jerusalem. The Jews will flee, and the eternal capital of the Jewish people will be transformed into an Arab city.

As for Judea and Samaria, not only would their handover transform 250,000 Israelis into internal refugees, it would leave 80% of the citizens of the truncated Jewish state within mortar and rocket range of the Palestinian state. Moreover, an Israeli relinquishment of the areas will clear the way for Arab armies to enter the Jordan Valley unopposed. The path from there to the Mediterranean is a short and easy one.

Given all of this, it is manifestly clear that by succumbing to Rice's obsession with summitry, the Olmert government is playing with fire. It is committing Israel to negotiating positions that deny the country the ability to demand that the Palestinians come to terms with the Jewish state and live at peace with it. And it is rendering strategically suicidal seven-year old offers the starting point of all negotiations for years to come.

On Wednesday, the State Department announced that Rice's conference is being postponed until the end of November to give the parties sufficient time to "prepare the groundwork" to somehow ensure the summit's success. Also Wednesday, Olmert and Abbas reportedly agreed that the conference would be nothing more than the starting point for future negotiations.

It can only be hoped that these approaches will be combined. All negotiations should be postponed until after the summit, and the summit should be delayed for weeks, then months, then years. Otherwise, in the name of "promoting peace," Rice and her Israeli underlings will foment a new war.

Hey there friends,

Here is an article I read which I could not agree with more. As you all know, there is supposed to be this big Mid East peace summit that the Bush Administration is pushing for in November.

Once again, Condoleeza Rice is jumping up and down like a poodle on speed (and delusional like she's on ecstacy and acid combined). Read on....



A cliched truism heard particularly following major terror attacks or ahead of summit meetings holds that "Peace is made with enemies." Israel is spoiled for choice. It's friends we're lacking. And with whom would you rather sit down and discuss how to run your neighborhood?

The diplomatic scene is huffing and puffing as it struggles to reach November's summit meeting, not that the heights are so dizzying. The expectations have been lowered since President George W. Bush dramatically announced the new initiative - or what passes as new in the international peace arena - in his July address. It is hard to maintain optimism about a breakthrough when it's not clear who will be invited, who will agree to attend, what will be on the agenda, or even what the aim of the gathering is.

The latest peacemaking drive relies on the principle of harnessing moderate forces. That's moderate as in Wahhabi Saudi Arabia. Bush is hoping that Riyadh can be relied on to rein in hostile forces in the Gulf and basically bring about world peace - even though it itself does not recognize Israel's right to exist and hardly seems to be on better terms with Syria or Iran.

At the heart of the problem of the planned summit is just who is a friend and who is an enemy, and indeed, exactly with whom Israel is meant to be making peace.

As historian Guy Ma'ayan put it in an opinion piece in Ma'ariv this week: "The festive declaration on the existence of a Palestinian partner for a permanent solution seems to have been taken from some delusional satirical sketch, or, at best, [will be] the subject of Barbara Tuchman's next book."

In The March of Folly, Tuchman set out three criteria that distinguish true follies from, say, ordinary incompetence on the part of any particular ruler: contemporaries must perceive the foolishness; a better course of action must have been available; and the course of action must have been pursued by a group rather than an individual over the course of more than one political generation.

The crunch, of course, is the different perceptions of what would be a better option than tying Israel's fate to a leader like Mahmoud Abbas, whose situation among his own people is so precarious that he dare not venture into half of the territory he is ostensibly meant to represent. Were Ehud Olmert and Abbas to enter Gaza City together, Hamas would have a hard time deciding which is public enemy No. 1.

We have tried Oslo I and Oslo II, and many cities in Israel bear the scars to prove it: memorials set up to commemorate ordinary citizens blown up on buses, in restaurants, wedding halls and other places of entertainment. Not to mention the psychological scars.

Abbas and Olmert might be able to get along OK (for summit small talk they could have a friendly chat about the problems of being stunningly unpopular politicians before getting down to the hard stuff like borders, refugees and Jerusalem). The question is whether Abbas and the Hamas leaders can agree on anything. While Olmert and Abbas might be friendly enough to prop each other up politically, Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh are clearly not even on speaking terms.

The Post's Khaled Abu Toameh on October 1 revealed the extent to which Abbas is willing to go to get at Hamas - via a video hoax of an honor killing that did take place, but in Iraq, not Gaza as the Fatah narrative had it. (The question of Palestinian fabrications for the media has reemerged this week, too, with the charge by the director of Israel's Government Press Office, Danny Seaman, that France 2 TV station staged the events surrounding the death of Muhammad al-Dura in Gaza in 2000.)

Even before the summit, there have been discussions about the value of releasing Palestinian prisoners to help Abbas in his fight against Hamas. IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi uncharacteristically threw his cap into the arena by criticizing Olmert for handing over prisoners while Hamas continues to hold kidnapped soldier Gilad Schalit in Gaza.

As one astute Post reader pointed out in a letter, it's all very well for Israel to make a gesture to the Palestinians in honor of Ramadan, but what goodwill did the Palestinians show Israel in honor of Rosh Hashana and the Jewish holiday season which coincided with the Muslim festival?

The release of security prisoners, which has become almost as routine as the arrest of the terrorists in the first place, is touted as a confidence-building measure. Unfortunately, when the foundations they are placed on are so shaky it is almost inevitable that someone is going to get hurt when the confidence-building blocks come tumbling down, even if the blocks aren't so solid.

As Post columnist Caroline Glick noted: "No mention is made of the fact that there is something terribly wrong with Palestinian society which views these attempted murderers as heroes and champions of their cause. The fact that Abbas says there is a direct link between his political strength and the freeing of these terrorists is not viewed as significant."

Peace talks, far from being a friendly get-together, have a habit of exacerbating the very conflicts they are meant to end: Not only the Oslo Accords led to an outbreak of Palestinian terrorism; the "Second Intifada" in 2000 has as much to do with the Camp David talks as Ariel Sharon's ill-fated visit to the Temple Mount. And just this week, slightly overlooked as a "foreign" story, was the news that at least 10 peacekeepers had been killed in an attack in Darfur. They were the well-intentioned victims of the latest round of fighting between rebels and Sudanese government forces, each apparently trying to improve their position ahead of a peace conference scheduled for later this month in Libya.

It's not that Israel and its Arab neighbors can't make peace. Both Egypt and Jordan have managed to maintain ties, not necessarily cordial but at least not confrontational. The two countries are now as concerned as Israel - if not more so - about the spillover of the internecine Palestinian fighting.

But the Hamas-Fatah divide is reminiscent more of the fractured Lebanon of Amin Gemayel with which Israel tried to make peace in 1983.

A peace summit has its place: But perhaps we should wait and see if the Palestinians are able to agree to live in peace with each other before we make what Olmert has already said will be "painful concessions." After all, the Saudi-brokered Mecca Accord between Hamas and Fatah in February has failed miserably.

Focusing on safely reaching the US-sponsored Saudi-oriented summit meeting rather than addressing how to reach a sustainable peace is a bit like planning a spectacular wedding without considering the nature of the marriage. There is no shortage of "friends" to invite, but the honeymoon is likely to be extremely brief.

Well folks,

I was ashamed, but not really surprised when I read the following....

Alan Keyes Excluded from Oct. 9 Michigan Presidential Debate

Well folks,

I was completely ashamed of the Michigan Republican Party after reading the following news.

Read on....