Ahhhhh yes...another Mideast `peace' summit

One of the more horrendous aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict is how one can read books and articles about the conflict written 20 years ago and realize how little has changed except for the names.

This new `summit' is a good example.

Secretary of State Condi Rice is in the region speaking with Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Olmert in what is supposed to be a `peace summit'...except Abbas just signed an agreement in Mecca to form a Palestinian unity government with Hamas that doesn't even recognize the existence of the country the Palestinians are supposedly negotiating with!

So, if that's true, why is Secretary Rice even meeting with Abbas? Isn't that endorsing the Palestinians' wholesale disregard of their prior commitments?

If you'll recall, the original news, helpfully leaked by the Palestinians, was that the US government threatened to shun the new Palestinian government unless they agreed to recognize Israel, renounce violence and terrorism and agree to abide by all the agreements the Palestinians have made with Israel since Oslo..all three of which the new Hamas/Fatah arrangement just abrogated in Mecca, at a meeting midwifed by our eternal friends the Saudis!

For the record, these are exactly the things Arafat agreed to do at Oslo...and never complied with in the least.

It's the same old broken record...to placate the Saudis and the other Arab Sunni autocracies, the US finds a terrorist that appears moderate so that we can give him money and arms to `control the extremists.'

And that money and those arms eventually ends up being used to kill Jews in Israel, as well as Americans from time to time.

The last time the US did this, the name of that `moderate' was Arafat.

Secretary Rice is, of course, attempting to sit on two chairs with one bottom as usual. She's been quoted as telling one media outlet that the US will not deal with a Palestinian government that doesn't recognize Israel or its prior agreements and telling another that the US will `continue to deal with Abbas.'

All one need do is substitute Arafat's name for that of Abbas, and the news stories of a decade or so ago could be run with few changes today.

One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.