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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For years, the White House has chosen to put the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the backburner. Actually, that’s probably overly generous — the Bush gang has preferred to ignore the problem altogether.

The good news is, the administration is now poised to hold a major Middle East peace conference. The bad news is, no one seems to have any idea who’s coming, when they’ll meet, or what they’ll do.

[N]o conference date has been set. No invitations have been issued. And no one really agrees on what the participants will actually talk about once they arrive at the Naval Academy for the meeting, which is intended to relaunch Bush’s stillborn “road map” plan to create a Palestinian state.

“No one seems to know what is happening,” one senior Arab envoy said last week, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid appearing out of the loop. “I am completely lost.”

A senior administration official, described by the WaPo as being “deeply involved in the preparations” for the conference, conceded that he or she “can’t connect the dots myself.”

To be sure, brokering Mideast peace is exceedingly difficult. But if the Bush administration could at least maintain the appearance of competence, it might instill a little more confidence.

God Told Me

President George W. Bush allegedly told Palestinian ministers that God had told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq - and create a Palestinian State, the BBC will report in a program slotted to run Oct. 17...read on

I'm not feeling too good today, but this story opened my eyes.