Rice reaches out to Palestine..

I don't often give the Bush Administration or Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice kudos, but in reading David Ignatius's article in the Washington Post, today I do.

I highly recommend reading the whole article, but one paragraph to me that is especially important is this one:

To add some balance to her effort, Rice is urging Arab states to reanimate their offer of peace to Israel, as expressed in Saudi King Abdullah's 2002 peace initiative. For example, Rice hopes the Arabs will discuss interim steps, such as ending hostile propaganda and exchanging trade missions and other low-level contacts. Rice's argument, in essence, is that a broad Arab-Israeli engagement is necessary during efforts to solve the Palestinian issue, instead of as icing on the cake after a peace deal is concluded.

I agree 100% that a broader Arab-Israeli engagement is the only way there will be peace between Israel and Palestine and I'm hopeful after reading the article that this is a step in the right direction.