Palestinian State

JERUSALEM -- Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas have spent more time alone together than any previous pair of Israeli and Palestinian leaders. They have sat for hours, in 12 meetings over the past 11 months, sharing pictures of their grandchildren and talking about a world in which those kids can grow up in peace. Smoke fills Olmert's study as Abbas, puffing on Marlboro Reds, describes the crushing burden of Israeli occupation in the West Bank. The Israeli prime minister lights up a cigar, lecturing his guest on the need to stop Palestinian militias from plotting against his people.

CAIRO -- Saudi Arabia and other key Arab nations agreed yesterday to attend a U.S.-sponsored peace conference next week in Annapolis, a move that added credibility to Washington's attempt to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict before President Bush leaves office. The political guessing game over which countries would take part ended here when the Arab League announced that Cabinet-level representatives from its major states, except for Syria, would travel to the meeting in Annapolis.

Thirty years ago, on Nov. 19, 1977, I stood at Israel's Ben Gurion airport as Anwar el-Sadat's plane landed on the tarmac. The scene defied imagination, as the Egyptian leader embraced Israeli leaders. Hope was in the air. Suddenly, anything seemed possible. Mr. Sadat's bold move led to Israeli accords with Egypt and Jordan and the tantalizing hope of a deal with the Palestinians. But over the last seven years, the peace process has virtually collapsed. Now comes the Annapolis meeting - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's gamble that she can spark a new push for a Palestinian state living peacefully beside Israel.

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Israeli and Palestinian officials have given themselves until the end of President Bush's term to reach a comprehensive peace agreement, Israeli, Palestinian and U.S. officials said yesterday. The deadline of just over a year from now, laid out Sunday by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and confirmed yesterday by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, gives a huge boost to the efforts of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to push the sides toward a peace plan during her tenure.

While Israeli and Palestinian teams seek to iron out conditions for renewed peace talks in Annapolis this fall, deep divisions among the Palestinian and Israeli political leaderships doom any Middle East peace summit to failure. Peace talks are usually a good thing. However, now is not the right time for such a summit, because - with a divided Palestinian polity and Israel's leadership in trouble - no progress would be made. It is possible, even likely, that another failure would lead to more frustration and violence, and could serve to embolden extremists on both sides who are opposed to peace.

Anne Arundel Judge's ruling causes uproar In the messy world of domestic violence cases, often complicated by a willingness to forgive, this one had a promising twist for prosecutors: Though the woman refused to testify against her boyfriend, a police officer said she had witnessed the attack at a Laurel gas station . But Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Paul Harris, in a decision that has victim's-rights advocates crying foul, acquitted the man...

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration pressured Israeli and Palestinian leaders yesterday to lay the groundwork for an Annapolis peace conference, with the president saying he was "optimistic" that talks brokered by the U.S. could lead to the creation of a Palestinian state. "This is going to be a serious and substantive meeting," Bush told reporters in his first news conference since disclosure that officials hope to hold a meeting at the Naval Academy in late November to revive the Mideast peace process.

CAIRO, Egypt -- The coming Israeli-Palestinian peace conference resembles a dinner party with a less-than-inspiring menu and a bunch of well-tailored yet exasperated guests who, if they show up at all, doubt that anyone will go home happy. Posturing and recrimination often characterize such negotiations, but Arab capitals, including Washington's closest allies, are criticizing the November conference in Annapolis as a miscalculated photo-op by a Bush administration desperate to repair its image across the Middle East.

This unassuming waterfront town is a centuries-old hand at hosting momentous events: the formal end of the Revolutionary War, George Washington ceding military authority to civilian rule, Teddy Roosevelt greeting a French fleet that brought John Paul Jones' remains. Then again, it doesn't take more than a boat show in October or a Navy football game to turn Maryland's quaint capital into a miserable parking lot. So Annapolis reacted with both pride and a touch of nervousness yesterday to news that the U.S. Naval Academy might be the site of a Mideast peace conference -- and the attendant media hordes -- in November.

PHILADELPHIA -- Is it a peace conference? Where will it be held, and what is its purpose? The Bush team is supposedly organizing a major international meeting in mid-November that could revive the near-dead Israeli-Palestinian peace process and expand it to other Arab states, including Saudi Arabia. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is deeply involved and has just been to the region to see Israeli and Palestinian leaders. But with November less than six weeks away, there's no firm date or venue for the meeting, and no one's certain who will attend.