when a peace proposal falls in the forest, can anyone hear it?

Matthew Yglesias notes that The Times (London) is reporting on Ehud Olmert’s nibbling at the Saudi Middle East peace proposals of a few years ago, and he thinks it’s a good idea. but he’s got a question:

Why isn’t this in the American press?

Good question.

Well, maybe because the television side of the press was too busy last week helping Jimmy Carter promote his notion that Israel is an apartheid state. As noted approvingly by the Arab American News,

his criticism of Israel on mainstream media outlets is unprecedented.

Jimmy Carter was on “Good Morning America” to talk about his new book, “Palestine Peace Not Apartheid.” (Simon & Schuster )

He was also on Meet the Press, on Larry King and Wolf Blitzer’s shows on CNN, on CSPAN, on the Early Show, and on PBS’s NewsHour, among others.

So the press was busy with its Israel “Story of the Week,” and the actual news from the Middle East got short shrift, because it didn’t fit the narrative they were peddling. While they were giving Carter—and, by association, the Palestinians— their respect, they missed the news that might eventually alleviate the suffering of the Palestinians: the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas; Olmert’s sturdiness in face of Hamas’s numerous violations of the cease-fire; and Olmert’s speech offering an olive branch. Of course they also missed Hamas’s most recent avowal never to make peace with Israel.

On the other hand, maybe it’s because they were so busy painting Bush’s Jordan summit with Maliki as an abject failure, as gloated over by the panel on George Stephanopoulos’s show this morning,

Sunday’s Roundtable

[no transcript available, unfortunately]

that they ignored the the other important item on the agenda in Amman—which had been introduced on Stephanopoulos’s show just the week before: the initiative undertaken by King Abdullah of Jordan, supported by the State Department, to try to move the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the front burner—an initiative Ehud Olmert got on board for even before Bush landed in Jordan.

Yglesias continues:

Seems like an important development.

Indeed.

If Olmert’s really “considering” this, the US government should encourage him to move forward.

In fact, Condi Rice did encourage him.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praised Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for his speech earlier this week, saying that his call for a renewal of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations was an important step that was likely to both contribute towards calm and advance the peace processes in the region. …

After her meeting with Olmert, Rice met with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. Before the meeting, Livni said Olmert’s speech was intended as a message to Palestinian moderates that “there is a political horizon,” implying the possibility of a resumption of talks.

Too bad the American media is still, five years after 9/11, still only interested in America.