MIDEAST . . . A SUMMIT TO SAVE THE PEACE

Egypt will host a summit of Middle Eastern leaders in Cairo, beginning Thursday, to try to resuscitate the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. "The summit will focus on the Palestinian track because it's the track which has been blocked by too many obstacles," Foreign Minister Amr Moussa said today. "The summit is to try to achieve a breakthrough." The meeting will be the first at which Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin faces the leaders of Egypt, Jordan and the PLO -- his main Arab peace partners -- as a group. Not invited, of course, are the unruly Islamic militants whose suicide attacks have strained the peace process in the first place. Even so, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is expected to parlay his standing as coalition leader into a key role in stalled peace talks between Israel and Syria, which has refused to attend the summit.