New Duranty: JERUSALEM — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held a series of talks on Israeli-Palestinian peace here on Sunday, saying she believed an accord was attainable by year’s end. But the process was overshadowed by an intensifying police investigation of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel.

Ms. Rice, who arrived here from a conference in London that focused on international donations to the Palestinian Authority, has held meetings with Mr. Olmert; the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas; and other top officials from both sides. In brief statements so far, all have been tight-lipped.

“We continue to believe that it is an achievable goal to have an agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis by the end of the year and by the end of President Bush’s term,” Ms. Rice said. She focused some of her comments on the need for Israel to make daily life easier for Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank.

I fail to understand why Israel needs to make life easier for the very people vowing its destruction, or why the "Palestinians" need a state that would allow them to import bigger and better weapons from like minded states. Would the creation of a state automatically confer the ability to govern themselves? Would Hamas and Palestinian Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade all lay down their arms? Is a state what they're fighting for, or is the destruction of the "Zionist entity" what they fight for? Fortunately, Olmert is in no position to make any deals.

But there were more signs on Sunday that the investigation of Mr. Olmert could further bog down the peace negotiations.

The nature of the accusation against Mr. Olmert is under a strict court-imposed gag order, so Israeli commentators, some of whom have received leaks of key details, have been talking around it. “The issue under investigation is serious, of that there can be no doubt,” wrote Nahum Barnea, a columnist for the newspaper Yediot Aharonot. “If it turns out that the allegations against Olmert are well founded, he will have to resign his post if not more than that.”...

Cry Me A River.