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Back on the Peace Train
(Wall Street Journal) Editorial - Gathering at John Kerry's home in Washington, Israeli and Palestinian officials on Monday relaunched peace negotiations. Syria is burning, Egypt is in turmoil and Jordan's king is under siege, but the Secretary of State will try to push this stone up the hill one more time. An independent Palestine must not pose a threat to Israel's security and survival, and that means that a defensible border won't match Israel's pre-1967 frontier. The biggest obstacle as ever will be the inability of the Palestinian leadership to compromise. Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority for nearly a decade, inspires little confidence as a negotiating partner. His chief accomplishment has been to lose control of Gaza to Hamas, the terrorist group that denies Israel's right to exist. The U.S. role should be as an honest broker, not as a backstage arm-twister of Netanyahu. Peace isn't possible if Palestinians aren't ready to make it on terms Israelis can live with.