Only in the Middle East could a diplomat seriously urge the side being victimized by decades of terrorism to slip into clinical denial:

Middle East envoy Tony Blair on Sunday urged Israel to make a "psychological shift" from indifference and skepticism about the prospects of progress with the Palestinians to an active determination to "make it happen on the right terms." If Israelis feel the same, Blair told The Jerusalem Post, then "the psychological shift that has to happen in the Israeli thinking is to move from saying, 'Well, if it happens, it happens, but frankly I'm skeptical about the whole thing,' to saying, 'Okay, I'm going to try and make it happen.'"... It was "not impossible" for the Palestinians to transform themselves into the kind of "stable partner for Israel" that Jordan constitutes, he said. But the new Palestinian leadership is living "with a very long legacy from the past," Blair said, in a reference to the Yasser Arafat era.

The Palestinian leadership needs to be given breathing room and lots of understanding because they're the ones living with the bloody legacy of Arafat? Really?

We do believe that the world could learn something by watching how the Palestinians respond to massive Israeli land concessions. For instance, imagine what would happen if the Israelis withdrew from a chunk of Palestinian land and let 1.5 million Palestinians govern themselves. Then if the Palestinians turned around and elected a party like Hamas, it would be obvious that they're not really interested in peace. It'd be an interesting experiment. Someone should try it.

References:
* Tony Blair urges Israel to make 'psychological shift' [JPost]

Previously:
* Agenda for Palestinian Conference: Giant Gorilla What?
* Bush To Put Some British Guy Who Ignores Israeli Security Concerns In Charge Of Mid-East Peace Process
* The Diplomats are Coming. Quick, Look Busy.