"Palestinian Opposes Provisional State." That's the headline on a New York Times article by Thom Shanker and Grey Myre posted online yesterday. The Palestinian who opposes a provisional state is Mahmoud Abbas who wants a final settlement for a state on the 1949 cease fire lines, with 4 million Arab refugees having the right to "return" to 1949 Israel, and with Jerusalem as its capital. He is living in a world of fantasy. For God's sake, he can't even get his own people to agree about who is the Palestinian government and who is not. Whether he's actually in power or whether power belongs to Hamas and Prime Minister Haniyah. He can't get the Interior Ministry's security forces to submit to the discipline of the president's office. You have read me telling you many more times than once that a Palestinian government does not exist, and it is already making demands for a permanent resolution of Arab-Israeli conflict. Abbas's signature won't be worth a fig. Not a fig. And this is because, as even Rashid Khalidi has come to recognize, a Palestinian population does not quite make Palestinian peoplehood, united, determined, disciplined, self-sacrificing, and willing to leave its Israeli neighbors in peace. As for now, a provisional government is actually the best that the Palestinians will get right now. But, since they are recalcitrant, it won't even get that. There is no one to sign for it, let alone give believable assurances that from across its borders there won't be targeted at Israel weapons that aim to kill.