More good news from Israel.

Israel Resumes Diplomatic Contacts With Palestinians

Israel and the Palestinians ended a nearly two-year freeze in high-level diplomatic talks on Wednesday and agreed to prepare next week for a first summit between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President Mahmoud Abbas.

The talks aim to build on a lull in Palestinian militant attacks engineered by Abbas, who this month succeeded late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

Officials said senior aides to the Israeli and Palestinian leaders would reconvene next week to hammer out details for the summit, the first since shortly after Palestinian militants launched an uprising in late 2000.

Many people predicted, and I had certainly hoped, that the death of Arafat was the necessary catalyst for change. But who really believed that so much could change in so little time?