MIDEAST: To the dismay of the Israeli government, and the delight of the proponents of the unofficial Geneva Accord on Israeli-Palestinian peace, US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell has taken to repeatedly praising the aims of those behind the initiative and is to meet its key protagonists, possibly as early as tomorrow.
Israel's deputy prime minister, Mr Ehud Olmert, had publicly urged Mr Powell on Tuesday to call off the scheduled meeting with Mr Yossi Beilin (the former Israeli justice minister) and Mr Yasser Abed-Rabbo (the former Palestinian Authority minister of information).
The Israeli government bitterly opposes both the principle of opposition politicians reaching a detailed peace deal with Palestinian leaders, and many of the specifics of the Geneva text. These include unprecedented territorial compromise and Palestinian sovereignty at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
But Mr Powell, in Morocco on a brief tour of North Africa, made plain yesterday that he welcomed ideas for peace "from whatever source".
While he stressed that the US- backed "road map" peace framework was not dead and that a substantive peace process required "a commitment from the Palestinian leadership ... to fight terrorism with more than words", he also reiterated his intention to meet the Geneva signatories.
On Tuesday night in Tunisia, Mr Powell was even more explicit.
"I do not know why I or anyone else in the US government should deny ourselves the opportunity to hear from others who are committed to peace and who have ideas," he said. It was his obligation, he added, "to listen to individuals who have interesting ideas".
The European Union yesterday also praised the Geneva Accord and other initiatives designed "to promote rapprochement, confidence-building and the search for a lasting peace".
Some Israeli analysts believe Mr Powell is asserting his relatively dovish position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, now that Ms Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Adviser, is preoccupied with the situation in Iraq, and much of the Bush administration is turning its attention to the presidential election campaign.
Israeli officials certainly appeared to recognise yesterday that they had lost this particular battle, with a government spokesman now saying that "we don't want to argue with Powell".
Indeed, Israel is now banking on US support to frustrate a Palestinian bid to have the international criminal court in the Hague issue a ruling on the legality of the security barrier it is building along the West Bank border and inside the West Bank.
The EU, while critical of the fence, also opposes involving the UN-linked court. Palestinian Authority officials have called on Israel to halt the West Bank raids.