Where next on Palestine?

Just two articles that came together in my mind. NYTimes:

With the two Palestinian territories increasingly isolated from each other by a week of brutal warfare between rival factions, Israel and the United States seem agreed on a policy to treat them as separate entities to support Fatah in the West Bank and squeeze Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The idea is to concentrate Western efforts and money on the occupied West Bank, which Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah faction control, in an effort to make it the shining model of a new Palestine that will somehow bring Gaza, and the radical Islamic group Hamas, to terms.

And from Haaretz.

The American embarrassment provides a convenient backdrop for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's visit to the White House on Tuesday. Worrying rumors about Bush's expected June 25 speech marking five years since he announced his now-moldy vision of a two-state solution were circulating in Jerusalem. Israeli officials spoke of America's "new ideas," a phrase that in Israel always ushers in the desire to run to a bomb shelter. ....

What will they discuss? The Hamas victory bolsters Israel's unstated policy of dividing the Palestinian Authority into two states - Gaza and the West Bank. Israel cannot say this out loud in front of the Americans, who are committed to a single Palestinian state, so Olmert will have to speak in code. ....

The Americans, meanwhile, are not rushing to switch gears. They still believe that strengthening Abbas is the only solution left, and that's what they'll tell Olmert. Some American officials listened skeptically this week to talk of handing Gaza over to a multinational force.

Update: The US adds "US backed" to the new Fatah West Bank government. U.S. plans end to Palestinian embargo (for the West Bank only.)