Some signs suggest that Mideast actors as well as the Bush administration now grasp the need and urgency of getting negotiations started on a two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

At present, the moves are only preliminary stirrings. The next steps will require political fortitude from Israeli and Palestinian leaders, President Bush, and the kings and presidents of the Arab states. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a subtle but telling gesture in the right direction earlier last week when she dropped in on a meeting at the State Department between the respected Palestinian finance minister Salam Fayyad and Assistant Secretary of State David Welch. She thus overrode a previous ban on contact with all members of a Palestinian government.

At the same time, Israeli PM Ehud Olmert was confirming that there has been a significant decrease in the number of rockets fired into Israel from Gaza. This is the result of an effort by President Mahmoud Abbas to persuade the militant group Islamic Jihad to observe a “tadiyah,” or calm, in coming days. Equally promising, Arab League foreign ministers sought, through Egypt and Jordan, to persuade Israel to consider the Arab League initiative offering peace with all the Arab states if Israel withdraws from territory captured in 1967.