Oh, I didn't mention that I am off the boat sailing the Turkish coast on the Mediterranean, and I am now in Israel. My periodic return visit. Tony Blair is on everybody's mind. No one, not even among the tiny residual cohort of Israeli peace optimists, believe his mission will succeed. Or can succeed. Savvy observers of "the situation" wonder whether finally he hasn't a masochistic streak in him--so inappropriate for someone played by Hugh Grant on the screen. Even the ever optimistic Ha'aretz editorial board was more than a bit sullen as it prayed "for Blair's success as he treads a path paved with the failures of many mediators, diplomats and envoys before him." The chief diplomatic correspondent of Ha'aretz, Aluf Benn, unflappable and independent, did two stories for today's newspaper. One called "Tips for Tony." Of course, Tony has behind him, at least as a status symbol, the agreement on Northern Ireland. But the death toll of both Protestant and Roman Catholic fanatics in Ireland over a few years wouldn't match the number of Palestinian victims of intra-Palestinian warfare in two or three days this month. Benn's second article--really an op-ed--is "No one to give them back to." The "them" are the territories. Benn does not believe this entirely. There may be Palestinians who would accept the West Bank. But they cannot assume or be assured that there won't be "Qassam rockets against Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Ben Gurion International Airport." Let's face it: there will...or would. One common theme comes up frequently in the press and in ordinary conversation: the comparison between Tony Blair and James Wolfensohn. I know Wolfensohn decently well. He succeeded me as the chairman of the Jerusalem Foundation in the United States and has been active on the Israeli musical and cultural scene. His own family foundation has been generous, more than generous to Zionist projects. As the president's representative, he often pressed Israel to the wall. I do not criticize him. After all, he pressed the Arabs to the wall, too. He wanted to squeeze pomegranate juice out of a dry lemon. It didn't work. How could it? Will Tony Blair succeed? The heavy odds are that he won't. Palestine will recede farther and farther from Palestinian reality.