Pope Francis waded into the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process upon arriving here on Sunday, issuing an extraordinary invitation to President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and President Shimon Peres of Israel to join him in his home in the Vatican for “a heartfelt prayer to God for the gift of peace.”

Peres deserves credit for his forward-thinking, but his proposition stands on shaky grounds. If, to borrow that second headline (from The Washington Post), Facebook presents a new extra-governmental route to diplomacy, the governments should stay out of the way and let the people speak. But that isn't how it works in certain parts of the world.