It is hard to know whether the most appropriate reply to the sudden Israeli expressions of interest in the 2002 Arab peace plan should be "Hallelujah!" or "Who are they kidding?"

What the Arab papers said on Oct. 27:

JERUSALEM -- Israel will be forced to hold early elections next February or March, instead of 2010 as scheduled, after Israeli foreign minister and chairwoman of the ruling Kadima party, Tzipi Livni, was unable to form a coalition government.

JERUSALEM -- In an upping of the tit for tat rhetoric between Tel Aviv and Tehran, several senior Iranian officials have recommended a pre-emptive strike on Israel in order to neutralize any Israeli attempt to bomb the Islamic republics alleged nuclear facilities.

In a farewell interview he gave to the Yediot Ahronot newspaper on the eve of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert dropped a bombshell. "What Im telling you now," he said to his interviewers, "no Israeli leader ever said before me: We have to pull out from almost all the territories [in the West Bank], including in East Jerusalem, including in the Golan Heights."

What do Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former U.S. President Bill Clinton have in common? Not much one might guess, and this is generally true. But when one examines their careers closely one would be surprised that the two lame-duck leaders attempted in the few weeks before they left office to resolve once and for all the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

JERUSALEM -- Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, has suddenly had an epiphany on his personal road to Damascus as he tries to portray himself as a prophet of peace weeks before he will be forced to step down.

A statement by the retiring Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has provoked a shock reaction in Israel and restrained joy among Arabs. "I am saying what no previous Israeli leader has ever said: we should withdraw from almost all of the territories, including East Jerusalem and in the Golan Heights," Olmert said in an interview to the Yediot Ahronot on the eve of the Jewish New Year.

This month marked 15 years since the signing of the Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles on the South Lawn of the White House, launching the Oslo process and a new hope for the Middle East. The anniversary was largely ignored, overshadowed by the latest rounds of political uncertainty and upheaval in both Israel (where the ruling Kadima party elected Tzipi Livni its new leader) and in the Palestinian territories. Indeed there was little cause for fanfare or celebration. The latest incarnation of Oslo, the Annapolis effort, is sputtering toward another unrealized peace deadline, the end of 2008.

With his characteristic clear-sightedness and knowledge of history, General Charles de Gaulle used to say that "one should not insult the future." He also believed that simple ideas were needed to address "the complicated Middle East." In the immediate future two important events will have an influence on the situation in the Middle East: the change of prime minister in Israel and the U.S. presidential elections in the United States.