And so I wonder: Might an Ambassador Lantos prove to be a future diplomatic miracle-worker of the Middle East?
Seen with the cold eye of an historian, absent the interminable hatred and vicious cycles of violence, fashioning a Mideast diplomatic solution does not seem impossibly beyond the realm of human reason and ingenuity. Miracles do sometimes happen in international politics.
Within my lifetime - and I'm twenty years younger than Congressman Lantos - there was once reasoned talk of integrating a Jewish State with surrounding Arab neighbors in an interdependent regional economy. And there were prominent Jews (derided as impractical dreamers by Zionist pragmatists) - philosopher Martin Buber and Hadassah founder Henrietta Szold and Rabbi Judah Magnes - who dared dream of "ihud" - unity - among the Jewish and Arab peoples of what was then British Palestine.
That seems so very long ago. Meanwhile, too much blind hate of unknowable enemies, too much killing, too little compassion.
And what is left? Only this bare plan by insouciant diplomats who carve "road maps" out of human terrain: Two Peoples, Two States.
It didn't take Rocket Science to produce the plan. It's so simple that even the incumbent President can understand it. What he may not understand - or care about - is bequeathing to his successor the maddening inheritance of moving from idea to reality.
The devil is in the details.
Jerusalem? Considered disputed Holy Land by three major religious faiths. I recall a presidential candidate of the long ago innocently suggesting that some solution might lie in "internationalizing" the city, to guarantee equal access to people of all religions. The idea was promptly stomped on by Israeli nationalists and their American brethren as ridiculous and obnoxious. The candidate was trounced, the idea forgotten. After decades of perpetual enmity there is little room for innovative thought.
Palestinian refugees? The most strident of Palestinian nationalists demand the "right of return" for descendants of the Arabs who, voluntarily or otherwise, abandoned their homes in the new State of Israel six decades ago. Not open for discussion, say the Israelis, with de facto reality, if not complete justice, on their side. But other peoples, in other times, have been deprived of land and property, and means have been found for - compensation.
Compensation - a thought, too, for exuberant Jewish settlers of the West Bank forced to give up their land, so inter-woven with religious chimeras, in some final settlement which, Prime Minister Olmert warned, might require painful sacrifices.
I'm not suggesting any of these notions as practical, workable solutions - only that there may be solutions. They need to be found. The human mind which can devise means for destroying our fellow men can also find ways of preventing such destruction. That's the essence of statecraft.
In the Middle East, however, what hopelessly complicates problem-solving is the irrationality of fanaticism - on the part of both antagonists.
Hamas swears unswerving dedication to Israel's destruction. Not so long ago, Abbas' Fatah vowed the same thing. Power and responsibility has a way of tempering extremist vows that seem to brook no compromise. Administrators of nation-states who must make the buses run and the sewers work, feed the hungry, care for the sick, educate the young - those in short, responsible for the mundane daily raison d'etre of government, will find little time for day-dreaming about pushing the unspeakable Jews into the sea.
But an American President must also cope with the other side of the coin. You say there is no question of profane symmetry? But you cannot ignore the unthinkable event of November 4, 1995. An Israeli Prime Minister was murdered by an Israeli gunman, a Jewish gunman, not an Arab. There are many Israelis today who believe that killer should be set free. Flip the coin, and that is what you see. And history will not judge this to be the isolated act of a madman. It was - and is - inextricably bound up with the collapse of another ill-fated Peace Accord, joyfully welcomed by the mainstream Israeli political Right.
It's very possible that the Right may again win control of the Israeli Government before the Bush-Olmert-Abbas Year of Peace has ended. And that will cheer some influential Jewish Americans who embrace Likud reactionaries, not just as fellow Jews, but as ideological birds of a feather.
And then what will become of the peace negotiations? That depends very much on the next President of the United States - and on the American envoys sent to rescue those negotiations from catastrophic collapse.
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