George W Bush came to the American presidency saying he was not interested in Clinton-style peacemaking. But now, amazingly, he’s invited hope that before his term is over, steps towards a negotiated settlement in the Middle East could well be taken at the Annapolis conference on November 27. The Economist (November 24) calls him Mr Palestine, claiming that “George Bush is the only man who can bring an independent Palestine closer”. With the Israelis and Palestinians appearing nowhere near bridging their differences, its cover leader has some advice for Bush. “In this speech Mr Bush needs to set out forthrightly America’s own plan for dividing Palestine. For a start, he should make it clear that when America talks of a two-state solution, it has in mind a border based on the pre-1967 line. On refugees, Mr Bush should say, as Bill Clinton did, that their right to ‘return’ should be exercised in the new Palestine and not in pre-1967 Israel: that is a bitter pill but it is the logic of a peace based on partition. And Israel too must accept a bitter potion: Jerusalem, the beating heart of both peoples, will have to be the capital of both.”In The Spectator, however, James Forsyth takes a grimmer view: “To many in Washington, the whole thing is a waste of time — a vain pursuit of a legacy at best, a distraction from more pressing matters at worst. One former Cheney staffer complains that the ‘investment they (the Bush administration) have put into this has taken the energy out of other issues they should have paid attention to’. This is a frequent complaint. The crises in Pakistan, North Korea and Iraq spring to mind.”Some of the problem that peacemakers face accrues from the both Fatah’s and Hamas’s uncertain support among the Palestinians. Newsweek (December 3) visits Palestinian billionaire Munib al-Masri in his Palladian mansion on the outskirts of Nablus to understand his plans for a third political alternative, called the Third Way. Among his political tactics: first winning the support of hairdressers, saying, “They are better than Reuters.”Times (December 3) tries to scientifically answer the question, what makes us moral, using brains scans and animal studies. The story tracks the formation of moral codes among groups, and it also takes in some new studies. For instance, “Researchers working through the National Institute of Mental Health scanned the brains of 20 healthy volunteers, watching their reactions as they were presented with various legal and illegal scenarios. The brain activity that most closely tracked the hypothetical crimes — rising and falling with the severity of the scenarios — occurred in the amygdala, a deep structure that helps us make the connection between bad acts and punishments. there was also activity in the frontal cortex. The fact that the subjects themselves had no sociopathic tendencies limits the value of the findings. But knowing how the brain functions when things work well is one good way of knowing where to look when things break down.” Meanwhile: The New Yorker (November 26) measures the distance between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in their bids for the Democratic nomination. The New Statesman (Nov 26) captures the Chinese cultural scene on the eve of the Beijing Olympics.
