Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, is bringing the wrong people together in Annapolis, near Washington, in November. Belatedly deciding that the time has come for the Bush administration to put energy and focus into Arab-Israeli peacemaking, her effort to gather Israeli and Palestinian leaders and whatever other dignitaries will join her is not only too little, too late. It is also the wrong thing to do.

There was a time not so long ago when reasonable people wondered whether common ground could ever be found between Arabs and Israelis. The Oslo accords were a true breakthrough, suggesting that at least some overlap existed between the maximum Israelis might offer and the minimum Palestinians might accept. Seven years of only partly successful negotiations highlighted just how much the details mattered. As it left office in late 2000, the Clinton administration left behind the “Clinton parameters”, a sort of high water mark for what had been agreed in principle and what could be expected in an agreement.