The big story out of Israel today is that the government of Ehud Olmert is conducting informal talks with Syria in Turkey aimed at achieving a comprehensive settlement. Syria’s foreign minister claims a deal has already been struck to de-annex the Golan Heights and retrogress the area to Syria. The other big story is that Olmert is desperately trying to push off what appears to be his inevitable ouster from office on corruption charges by seeking a continuance of a deposition in an Israeli courtroom. The notion that the weakest government in Israel’s history, which really is nothing more than a house of cards at this point, will be able to present such a deal to the nation’s people at this moment of all moments is farcical at best and…farcical at worst.