WASHINGTON, Dec. 27 (UPI) -- To corral some 40 nations to attend the Annapolis, Md., summit last Nov. 27 on midwifing a Palestinian state, President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice relied on the "Coue method," or the healing power of the imagination. After an almost seven-year hiatus, glasses were half full and filling, and dark clouds were studded with silver linings.

At the turn of the last century Dr. Emile Coue, a French chemist who became a hypnotist, relied on the subconscious mind, which controls the body and is more quickly impressed by mental pictures. And simply by changing the mental pictures, Coue figured the subconscious also changes -- as well as the body that houses it. Clearly, that's the only way a Palestinian state can be imagined -- 240,000 Israelis in 145 settlements in the West Bank living happily in a new country governed by a coalition of Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Settlements throughout the West Bank have been expanding steadily two or three houses at a time for the past four years. And while world attention was focused on Coue's demo in Annapolis, the Knesset authorized 307 new Jewish dwellings in East Jerusalem.

One of America's most important Jews, just back from Israel and speaking privately and not for quotation, told this reporter, "I have talked with anyone who's anyone in politics, the army and intelligence, traveled throughout the country and the territories, and a Palestinian state is a figment of the imagination. It will never happen. Those who matter in Israel are determined to prevent its creation."

Before heading home from Annapolis, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert still appeared to be enthralled by Coue. He even used the forbidden analogy of "apartheid" for Israel if it failed to make possible a Palestinian state. This was the same word in the title of Jimmy Carter's recent book -- "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" -- that triggered a torrent of invective from Jews and Evangelicals against the former president. No sooner home than Olmert escaped Coue's spell and changed his pitch. Concessions were now up to the Palestinians, he said.