Roger Cohen says: "I  think Olmert’s words should be emblazoned on the wall of Hillary Clinton’s eighth-floor State Department office: “We must reach an agreement with the Palestinians... [etc etc etc]"

This statement reminds me of a story I once read about a nineteenth century British rag that used to publish sensational novels in weekly serialized form. The story was written from one week to the next.  

In one such case, the author ended his weekly chapter with his hero poised in a breath-stopping situation, hanging with both hands from the mouth of a deep pit, snakes snipping at his feet, on one side a roaring lion, on the other two crooks with their guns aimed at him.

Then the author failed to submit the following week's chapter. As he was a known lush, everyone suspected that he had gone on one of his drinking binges. The editor asked other writers to provide the necessary instalment but they were all stymied. They had no idea how to extricate the hero out of the pit, and away from the menacing snakes, lion and killers. The paper was issued with an apology to the angry readers for missing that week’s episode.

Finally the author showed up. Everyone flew at him, demanding yelling and predictably, at a complete loss as to how he was going to resolve the situation.

What's the problem, said the author. He picked up a pen and started writing:

"Once out of the pit, our hero..."