Historic meeting planned for Israeli and Syrian leaders

There's an article in today's London Times discussing a possible meeting between Basher Assad of Syria and Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert. For various reasons -- including the domestic political problems of Olmert and Assad and the likelihood that we will soon welcome president Obama -- the stars may be aligned for a deal.

The article also mentions something interesting that is underreported in the U.S. press: the meeting between Olmert and Assad may take place during a "summit of European and Mediterranean countries" that will be held in Paris on July 13. As some of you know, I have long been a proponent of defusing the most pressing problems in the middle east by co-opting the various countries into a larger joint economic enterprise like the original European Economic Community founded in the 1950s. As noted in this article on euractiv.com, the Union of the Mediterranean already includes all countries of the E.U. (upon German insistence), Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the Palestinian Authorities, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey, and one of the key objectives is to establish a free trade area by 2010. Perhaps this is overly ambitious, but one can always hope (especially when there's money to be made).