With his popularity hitting rock bottom, it is only natural that Ehud Olmert would rather be remembered as the leader of a peace initiative than the prime minister who screwed up the Second Lebanon War. Toward that end, he has grabbed at President George Bush's offer of a regional summit in Washington this November with both hands. Olmert may behave as if he is Ariel Sharon's heir, but in practice, he has kissed the unilateral disengagement plan goodbye and chosen to follow in the footsteps of Menachem Begin, moving from war to a peace treaty.

His intention, according to media reports, is to go to Washington with a framework for a permanent accord with the Palestinians. Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas, in a secret contest to see who can wear the loudest tie, are discussing all the sensitive issues, openly and behind closed doors, so that they will have a draft agreement for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to lay out on the table.

In the matter of the leak, about Israel being prepared to withdraw to the 1967 borders if it gets to keep most of the settlement blocs, there is just one little problem: Abbas doesn't represent all the Palestinians, and Olmert doesn't represent all the citizens of Israel. A quarter of a million settlers, many of them third-generation in the settlements, are not going to sit around twiddling their thumbs when Washington raises a glass of champagne to celebrate even a draft of a draft.