In a Jewish Republicans forum directed by House Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), Deputy National Security Advisor and Bush administration Democracy Czar Elliott Abrams may have tipped the Oval Office's hand a bit too far regarding the efforts of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to establish standards of mutual accountability in the Israel-Palestinian peace process.  Rice's benchmarks are in synch with a report by Paul Wolfowitz's World Bank, stressing economic hardships imposed on Palestinians by Israel in the territories regarding the use of roads, freedom of movement, forbidding Palestinians from entering roads used by Jewish settlers and closing off areas around settlements.

As reported in the Forward on May 10, 

Abrams described President Bush as an “emergency brake” who would prevent Israel from being pressed into a deal; during the breakfast gathering, the White House official also said that a lot of what is done during Rice’s frequent trips to the region is “just process” — steps needed in order to keep the Europeans and moderate Arab countries “on the team” and to make sure they feel that the United States is promoting peace in the Middle East.

...Rice’s renewed drive to promote an Israeli-Palestinian settlement is seen in Washington not only as a desire to calm America’s allies in Europe and the Middle East but also as part of the new thinking within the State Department, which views the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an obstacle that deters Arab countries from joining the United States in its attempts to stabilize Iraq.

This view was recently reinforced by Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, who in a conversation with nationally syndicated columnist Robert Novak accused Abrams of preventing the administration from having a “coherent Middle East policy” which would engage Iran and Syria in an attempt to stabilize Iraq. “I do know that there are a number of Israelis who would like to engage Syria,” Hagel told Novak. “They have said that Elliott Abrams keeps pushing them back.”

Who do we trust in order to understand what is really going on?  Rice?  Abrams?  Hegel?  Novak?  It is a sorry state of affairs when these are the options dealt to us by the keepers of the common wisdom. 

But there are rays of light, if not encouraging signs, that there are some at important levels of leadership with a degree of sanity and vision.  Nancy Pelosi's delegation to the Middle East is promising, and hardly the harbinger of defeat and failure as declared in administration statements and beltway punditocracy circle jerks -- including, notably, Secretary Rice herself.

And there are signs of life among the leadership of the principal parties as well.  With Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert making interested noises regarding the Arab League's Beirut/Riyadh initiative in Jordan ahead of the upcoming World Economic Forum, Ha'aretz reports,

Vice Premier Shimon Peres will meet with Jordan's king separately next Sunday during the World Economic Forum conference which will take place in Jordan. Peres will discuss with the king his plan to build a channel stretching from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea and to establish economic and tourist enterprises along it, with the cooperation of Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.