Middle East talks in Annapolis: photo-op or talk-fest

• There is one thing certain about the international (or regional or bilateral)
  Middle East peace conference (or meeting or get-together) called by Condoleezza Rice
  (or George Bush or Elliott Abrams) for November (or maybe December): it's going to
  be held in Annapolis, Maryland (probably).

• Rice's sudden renewal of interest in and commitment to a new Middle East "peace
  process" has two main goals: buying support from Arab regimes for Washington's war
  in Iraq and escalating threats against Iran, and providing a photo-op to restore
  Rice's tarnished legacy.

• The agenda for the talks has not yet been finalized, but it will not include
  the goal of reversing Israeli occupation and dispossession and ending Israel's
  discriminatory apartheid policies.

• Because of U.S.-Israeli control of the agenda, "success" in Annapolis will
  depend on whether the Palestinian leadership can be coerced to sign on to a
  U.S.-Israeli text that many Palestinians will view as further abandonment of
  Palestinian national goals, and many in international civil society will see as
  violations of international law and human rights. There are serious questions
  whether the meeting as currently envisioned will be convened at all because of
  Palestinian refusal to accept U.S.-backed Israeli preconditions.

• With the U.S.-Israeli-led international boycott remaining intact, the
  conference is unlikely to lead to any even short-term improvement in the
  humanitarian crisis exploding across Gaza.

There is serious doubt about even the official viability of the conference. Ten
days from the anticipated opening, invitations have not been issued (because Arab
governments and even the Palestinian leadership have not so far agreed to
U.S.-Israeli terms), an agenda has not been announced, and no preliminary statement
of goals and/or principles has been agreed to. Palestinian officials have so far -
at least publicly - rejected at least some of Israel's preconditions.

Besides her urgent need to update her legacy (which is currently that of the person
who stood before the world at the United Nations and announced "we don't want a
ceasefire yet" as Israeli jets bombarded Lebanon in summer 2006), Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice urgently needs to win flagging Arab government support for the Bush
administration's failing war and occupation in Iraq and its escalating mobilization
against Iran. While most Arab governments remain quite happy to join the U.S.
crusade, their people do not share support for the occupation of Iraq or for the
anti-Iranian fervor now ascendant in Washington. As a result, the unpopular and
often unstable Arab regimes (absolute monarchies, family dynasties and military
regimes masquerading as democracies) must provide some kind of concession for the
Arab rulers to pacify their restive populations. The latest version is to offer a
high-profile (however low the results) diplomatic show aimed at allowing Arab
governments to announce that the U.S. is now helping to give the Palestinians a
state. As the New York Times described it, "now the United States is mired in Iraq
and looking for a way to build good will among Arab allies."

The Bush administration apparently anticipated that Arab governments, at the highest
levels, would welcome invitations to Annapolis. But so far, even Jordan and Egypt,
the two Arab governments with full diplomatic relations with Israel, have hesitated,
and Saudi Arabia has remained unconvinced. Even if the Arab governments agree to
participate, they may send low- to mid-level officials, without the political clout
- and photo-op value - of kings and prime ministers.

The stated U.S. goal for the Annapolis meeting is to realize a two-state solution.
But in fact, if the conference takes place at all, the result will be to continue
the approach of the long-moribund 2003 "Roadmap to Peace." It will, at most,
provide a high-visibility launch of a new edition of the same Israeli-Palestinian
"peace process" that has failed so many times before: a process based on acceptance
of Israeli dominance over Palestinian lives and territory. Its real goal will be to
create something that the U.S. can anoint as an "independent Palestinian state,"
while leaving largely unchallenged Israeli strategic, military, and economic
domination over the entire area of Israel-Palestine.

The meeting's agenda will not be based on what international law, as well as
Palestinian and global public opinion, requires for a just, lasting and
comprehensive settlement of the conflict: an end to Israeli occupation and
settlement projects, realization of the Palestinians' rights of self-determination
and return, and an end to Israeli discrimination and apartheid policies.

If the U.S.-Israeli goals for Annapolis are realized, they would probably lead to
the following "two-state solution" results:

Borders

A Palestinian "state" would be announced on a series of non-contiguous truncated
Bantustan-like cantons comprising something less than 50% of the West Bank plus
Gaza. Israel might, with great fanfare, charitably "adjust" very slightly the
current route of the Apartheid Wall to seize slightly less land that the current
route (which Israeli Foreign Minister Tsipi Livni earlier announced would be the
basis for any border). All of the West Bank's major water aquifers will remain on
the Israeli side of the Wall.

Settlements

All the major West Bank settlement blocs would remain intact on the Israeli side of
the Wall, leaving between 180,000 and 200,000 of the current 250,000 West Bank
settlers in place. With great fanfare most of the 105 small symbolic "outpost"
settlements constructed since 2001, which together house only about 2000 settlers,
will be dismantled. The entire Jordan Valley would remain in Israeli hands. In
exchange, Palestinians would be offered a "land swap" which would almost certainly
involve a significantly smaller amount of land, of far less arability and viability.

Refugees

The Palestinian right of return, codified not only in general international law but
specifically in UN resolution 194 (1949), has already been officially rejected by
Israel but also by the United States, in the Bush-Sharon letter exchange of April
2004. Israel's Annapolis agenda plans to reassert that rejection though a demand
that the Palestinians accept language recognizing the "Jewish character" of Israel,
or accepting the definition of Israel as "the state of the Jewish people" as opposed
to a state of its own citizens. So far Palestinian officials have indicated they
will not accept that language, which Israeli Prime Minister Olmert says is a
precondition to any negotiations. The rejection of the right of return will be
further entrenched by an Israeli "offer" to Palestinian refugees the privilege of
"returning" to the erstwhile new "Palestinian state," rather than the right to
return to their actual home territory inside what is now Israel.

Jerusalem

International law (UN Security Council resolution 181, which divided Palestine into
what was supposed to become a Jewish and an Arab state) calls for Jerusalem to
belong to neither state, but rather to be a "separate body" under international
jurisdiction. Virtually no governments (not even the U.S.) recognize Israel's
annexation of occupied Arab East Jerusalem, and numerous UN resolutions have
reaffirmed that East Jerusalem is occupied territory. The Israeli settlements in
East Jerusalem (known as neighborhoods, not settlements) include over 200,000
Israeli settlers, and they will remain in Israeli hands. The Israeli position in
Annapolis will call for continuing Israeli control of all of Jerusalem, with some
kind of Israeli-controlled "autonomy" for Palestinian neighborhoods and parts of the
Old City's Muslim shrines.

If the U.S.-Israeli agenda for Annapolis succeeds with an official Palestinian
imprimatur, the already reduced legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority could
diminish further, and the existing Palestinian political crisis, especially the
Fatah-Hamas divide, could be seriously exacerbated. It is important to remember
that that the U.S. as well as Israel bear significant responsibility for the
divisions, tensions and violence inside the Palestinian polity. In his leaked
confidential report, former UN representative to the so-called Quartet, Peruvian
diplomat Alvaro de Soto stated directly that "the U.S. clearly pushed for a
confrontation between Fatah and Hamas - so much so that, a week before Mecca [the
Saudi-brokered unity agreement between the two factions], the U.S. envoy declared
twice in an envoys meeting in Washington how much 'I like this violence,' referring
to the near-civil war that was erupting in Gaza in which civilians were being
regularly killed and injured, because 'it means that other Palestinians are
resisting Hamas'."

The talks in Annapolis will likely not even address the current humanitarian (as
well as political) crisis currently ravaging the 1.6 million people of Gaza. The
U.S.-Israeli-led international boycott of Gaza, as well as Israel's designation of
Gaza as an "enemy entity" will remain in place. Israel's restrictions on the supply
of fuel and electricity to Gaza have already began to bite; with electricity
supplies down the availability of fresh water is diminishing, and the declining
stocks of transport fuel are expected to reach crisis point some time in the next
few days. New U.S. aid to the Palestinians recently proposed by the Bush
administration remains stalled in Congress pending "success" at Annapolis; in any
case, that aid is almost entirely limited to support, especially military/security
assistance, for the Fatah-led government in Ramallah, with virtually nothing
designated for the desperately impoverished Gaza Strip.

Phyllis Bennis is a Fellow of both Transnational Institute and the Institute for Policy Studies and serves on the
steering committee of the U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation. She is author of
UNDERSTANDING THE PALESTINIAN-ISRAELI CONFLICT: A PRIMER. To sign up to receive
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