Of course, considering how little Israel has conceded to the peace process in the past, just about anything would look good. But I'll cautiously give the Obama administration some props here - they do appear to be serious about forcing at least some progress with Israel:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Saturday that Israel is making "unprecedented" concessions on West Bank settlement construction — a position clearly at odds with the prevailing Palestinian view.

Palestinian leaders have said they will not return to peace talks with Israel unless it halts all settlement building on lands they claim for a future state, and they believe Israel has blatantly defied a U.S. demand for a settlement freeze.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday, Clinton said Israel is putting significant limits on settlement activity.

"What the prime minister has offered in specifics on restraints on a policy of settlements ... is unprecedented," she said.

The issue of settlements has become the biggest sticking point in getting Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table.

Clinton made it clear that she wasn't pleased with Israeli settlement construction but that it was no reason to hold up talks.

"There are always demands made in any negotiation that are not going to be fully realized," she said.

Likely translation: We're going to take whatever crumb you throw as encouragement, but you're not going to get off the hook that easily.

Palestinians expressed deep disappointment and frustration at Clinton's words, which signaled a departure from past U.S. calls for a complete freeze on settlement activity.

"If America cannot get Israel to implement a settlement freeze, what chance do Palestinians have of reaching agreement with Israel on permanent status issues?" Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said.

Similar sentiments were voiced by Jordan and Egypt, the only two Arab countries to have peace agreements with Israel. The two countries said most of the blame lay with Israel, but signaled their unhappiness with the American shift.

Jordan's King Abdullah II traveled to Cairo for talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. After the meeting, a royal palace statement released in Jordan said both leaders "insisted on the need for an immediate halt of all Israeli unilateral actions, which undermine the chances of achieving peace, especially the settlement construction."

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Absolutely shocking. Since these types of crime are typically incited by inflammatory rhetoric, it seems likely it had something to do with the ultra-Orthodox activists in the city:

JERUSALEM -- Hundreds of police officers scoured the streets of Tel Aviv on Sunday in a manhunt for a gunman who shot and killed two people and wounded 11 others at a club for gay youth.

The shooting shocked the Mediterranean city, which prides itself on its live-and-let-live attitude and boasts a thriving gay community, and drew condemnations from the city's mayor, from Cabinet ministers and from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "We'll bring him to justice and exercise the full extent of the law against him," Mr. Netanyahu said of the killer, speaking at the Israeli Cabinet's weekly meeting.

A masked man entered a club for gay teens in downtown Tel Aviv late Saturday, pulled out a pistol and shot in all directions, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. Israeli media identified the dead as a 26-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl. The man then holstered his pistol and fled the scene on foot into the busy streets of Tel Aviv, Mr. Rosenfeld said.

Nitzan Horowitz, Israel's only openly gay lawmaker, called the attack a "hate crime." "This is the worst attack ever against the gay community in Israel," he said. "This act was a blind attack against innocent youths, and I expect the authorities to exercise all means in apprehending the shooter."

Israel's gays and lesbians typically enjoy freedoms similar to those of gays in European countries. Gay soldiers serve openly in the military, and openly gay musicians and actors are among the country's most popular. Tel Aviv holds a festive annual gay parade, rainbow flags are often seen flying from apartment windows and there is a city-funded open house for the community.

However, ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders often incite against gays, especially in conservative Jerusalem, where there have been clashes between religious and gay activists. In 2005, an ultra-Orthodox protester stabbed three marchers at a Jerusalem gay parade. The ultra-Orthodox Shas party, a frequent critic of gays in Israel, issued a statement condemning Saturday's attack.

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What on earth is going on here? On "This Week" this morning, Biden shrugs off possible Israeli action against Iran with "Whattaya gonna do?". But Joe, while Israel is certainly a sovereign nation, it's one that's heavily subsidized by the United States and we certainly do have a say. Didn't you just give them the go-ahead signal to bomb Iran?

Seems to me this is the moral equivalent of sending detainees to other countries to be tortured and then saying, "That wasn't us!"...

STEPHANOPOULOS: But there will be engagement -- if the Iranians want to...

(CROSSTALK)

BIDEN: If the Iranians seek to engage, we will engage.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And meanwhile, the clock is ticking...

BIDEN: If the Iranians respond to the offer of engagement, we will engage.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But the offer is on the table?

BIDEN: The offer's on the table.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And meanwhile, Prime Minister Netanyahu has made it pretty clear that he agreed with President Obama to give until the end of the year for this whole process of engagement to work. After that, he's prepared to make matters into his own hands.

Is that the right approach?

BIDEN: Look, Israel can determine for itself -- it's a sovereign nation -- what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Whether we agree or not?

BIDEN: Whether we agree or not. They're entitled to do that. Any sovereign nation is entitled to do that. But there is no pressure from any nation that's going to alter our behavior as to how to proceed.

What we believe is in the national interest of the United States, which we, coincidentally, believe is also in the interest of Israel and the whole world. And so there are separate issues.

If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursued now, that is their sovereign right to do that. That is not our choice.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But just to be clear here, if the Israelis decide Iran is an existential threat, they have to take out the nuclear program, militarily the United States will not stand in the way?

BIDEN: Look, we cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination, if they make a determination that they're existentially threatened and their survival is threatened by another country.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You say we can't dictate, but we can, if we choose to, deny over-flight rights here in Iraq. We can stand in the way of a military strike.

BIDEN: I'm not going to speculate, George, on those issues, other than to say Israel has a right to determine what's in its interests, and we have a right and we will determine what's in our interests.

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David Gregory seems a little too eager to grab himself a headline as he badgers Benjamin Netanyahu over whether Israel will take unilateral action against Iran if they continue with their nuclear ambitions. Netanyahu doesn't bite of course, but just what does David Gregory think he's going to achieve with this line of questioning?

GREGORY: Let me ask you about the nature of the Iranian threat. Mohamed ElBaradei, who, as you know, runs the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in an interview with the BBC on Wednesday the following: "The ultimate aim of Iran," he said, "as I understand it, is they want to be recognized as a major power in the Middle East. [Increasing their nuclear capability] is to them the road to get that recognition, to get that power and prestige. It is also an insurance policy against what they have heard in the past about regime change." My question, Prime Minister, what does all that's happening on the streets of Iran do, in your estimation, to the nature of the threat from Iran? Is this a game changer in some way?

NETANYAHU: First of all, I, I don't subscribe to the view that Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons is a status symbol. It's not.These are people who are sending thousands and thousands of missiles to their terrorist proxies Hezbollah and Hamas with the specific instruction to bomb civilians in Israel. They're supporting terrorists in the world. This is not a status symbol. To have such a regime acquire nuclear weapons is to risk the fact that they might give it to terrorists or give terrorists a nuclear umbrella. That is a departure in the security of the Middle East and the world, certainly in the security of my country, and so I wouldn't treat the subject so lightly. Would a regime change be a game changer? A policy change would be a game changer.

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These are all conditions previously rejected by the Palestinians, and Bibi's still refusing to halt the settlements, so I'm puzzled by what, exactly, he's saying that's progress. I guess the thing that's interesting is what he didn't say - he didn't use the election riots in Iran as a way to do his usual fear-mongering routine:

JERUSALEM — The prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Sunday endorsed for the first time the principle of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, but on condition that the state is demilitarized and that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people.

In a much-anticipated speech meant in part as an answer to President Barack Obama’s historic address in Cairo earlier this month, the Israeli leader reversed his longstanding opposition to Palestinian statehood, a move seen as a concession to American pressure.

But he explicitly rejected American demands for a complete freeze on Israeli settlements in the West Bank, hardening a rare public dispute between Israel and its most important ally on an issue seen as critical to peace negotiations.

And even his concession on Palestinian statehood, given the caveats, was immediately rejected as a nonstarter by Palestinian officials.

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