Despite harsh criticism from right-wing ministers about the
Annapolis peace summit, the Israeli cabinet on Sunday decided to
support the agreements reached regarding final-status negotiations
with the Palestinians.
The Annapolis summit, which was the latest round of the Middle
East Peace Conference, focused on the Palestine-Israel conflict in
the United States, this was the largest international conference
aimed at rescuing the Middle East peace process since the Madrid
Peace Conference of 1991.
US President George W. Bush read out a joint statement reached
by Palestine and Israel last Tuesday, saying the two sides had
confirmed they would start negotiations over all issues between
them immediately and resolve all of them next year.
This result brought the Middle East peace process a ray hope but
could not change the reality: Palestine-Israel peace talks remain a
treacherous path full of thorny obstacles.
The Palestine-Israel conflict has been the core of the Middle
East crisis since the 1940s and the root cause of the lasting
turmoil in the region.
The Clinton administration knew this clearly and made some
efforts in pushing forward the peace process.
As for the Bush administration, it changed Washington's Middle
East policy as a result of its "de-Clintonization" policy.
Iraq replaced the Palestine-Israel conflict as the central focus
of the Bush administration's Middle East policy, with maintaining
and tightening sanctions against Iraq dominating its Middle East
maneuvers before Iraq War began. And what has happened since needs
no mention.
The Bush administration unveiled the crude concept of a Middle
East peace "road map" in June 2002, which included the
establishment of a Palestinian state in 2005 and helped to improve
the Palestine-Israel relations a bit as armed attacks
decreased.
After major military campaigns ended in Iraq, President Bush
announced in June 2003 at the end of the US-Arab summit held at the
Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt that the US was willing
to help Palestine and Israel achieve real peace as soon as
possible, while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice managed to
bring the two sides to agree on a ceasefire.
Alas, but good things never last, as the "road map" barely
survived two months when it was practically abandoned in August
2003. Washington was adamant that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat
supported terrorism and determined to kick him out of the
picture.
After the death of Arafat in November 2004, the US thought his
successor Mahmoud Abbas could tag along and offered $350 million
worth of aid to Palestine.
Throughout 2005, a relatively long period of quiet rarely seen
between Palestine and Israel prevailed. In August that year, then
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon launched his "unilateral action
plan" and ended 38 years of Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip.
Some Arab countries adjusted their relations with Israel, but again
it was short lived.
In Israel, Ehud Olmert, who advocated tough policies toward
Palestine, succeeded the Jewish state's government after Sharon
succumbed to a massive stroke in April 2006. In Palestine,
meanwhile, the extremist Hamas group won the parliamentary election
and formed a government for the first time in history.
As Hamas was a bona fide "terrorist organization" in the eyes of
the US, Washington refused to deal with the group. The in-fighting
between Hamas and Fatah, founded by Arafat and loyal to his cause,
has been going on ever since.
In the summer of 2006, military clashes broke out again between
Israel and the Hezbollah extremists in Lebanon, and the US stepped
on many an Arab nation's toes by supporting Israel's cross-border
attacks on Hezbollah positions.
During the armed clashes between Lebanon and Israel, the US flew
in more precision-guided aerial bombs to Israel, which already had
the upper hand in superior weaponry, such as fighter jets and
missiles, with abundant supply of fuel and advanced technology to
boot.
Thanks to US pampering, a ceasefire between the two sides was
delayed as Israeli forces kept on pounding their enemy. It was
obvious the US was out of line as the "referee" when it made sure
Israel fared well in this lopsided brawl.
Today, the US is faced with a series of problems in the Middle
East: the security situation in Iraq has not changed fundamentally;
the Iran issue remains in a fix and has become Washington's top
concern, while the Palestine-Israel peace process is stuck.
The US now finds its Middle East strategy caught in a bind and
one cannot but wonder how it would get out of this mess.
It seems the Bush administration's current strategy is to
restart the Middle East peace process so as to win sympathy and
support from moderate Arab countries for forming some kind of a
"united front" against Iran.
The Annapolis international conference was convened against this
backdrop. And the US strategy was given a footnote when Rice said
before the peace conference that the Palestine-Israel issue should
be settled alone rather than in conjunction with the situation in
the whole region.
This means the US wants to separate the Palestine-Israel issue
from issues such as Iraq and Iran to make it a breakthrough for its
Middle East strategy.
The Bush administration said the Annapolis peace conference was
to achieve three goals. The first is to serve as the starting point
of negotiations over the establishment of a Palestinian state; the
second is to focus on the implementation of the Middle East peace
"road map" again, and the third is to rally international support
for the Middle East peace process.
In a sense, the peace conference did reach its goals. The 49
countries and international organizations present at the gathering,
including the five permanent members of the United Nations Security
Council, the four parties involved in the Middle East peace "road
map" deal and 16 Arab states, all expressed strong support for the
peace conference.
The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the international
community to support the Palestinian authorities' reconstruction,
reform and fulfillment of its duties whenever necessary. Olmert and
Abbas flew to Washington on Friday for negotiations immediately
after the Annapolis conference.
The "hawks" in Palestine and Israel have been the main
resistance forces to Middle East peace throughout the dragging and
twisting process.
In 1995, then Israeli President Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign
Minister Shimon Peres set their minds on the "land for peace"
principle to resolve the Palestine-Israel issue, much to the dismay
of extremist factions in their own country that led to a major
setback for Palestine-Israel peace when Rabin was assassinated in
November that year.
During the Camp David talks in 2000, the two sides abruptly went
separate ways when they were very close to reaching an agreement,
because the confrontationist elements within the Palestinian
authorities pressured Arafat out of any compromise.
Now, "hawks" on both sides have voiced their response to the
Annapolis peace conference.
A rightwing parliamentarian of Israel said he would not allow
any compromise proposed by Prime Minister Olmert or the
establishment of a "terrorist state" in the heart of Israel; while
Palestine's Hamas group, which was barred from the peace
conference, held a "counter meeting against the Middle East peace
conference" in Gaza, which is under their control, claiming the
delegation that went to the US "could not represent the Palestinian
people".
It "would reject any compromise offered by either side on issues
such as Jerusalem and repatriation of Palestinian refugees".
The Palestinian authorities and Israeli government today are
both in a vulnerable position compared to the situation in 2000. At
that time Arafat's power was at its peak as he was widely revered
in Palestine, a position Abbas cannot reach today.
Today's Olmert government is also an underdog, as Olmert himself
has been accused of involvement in corruption.
With the two authorities in such a vulnerable state, no one is
sure they can carry out any agreement even if they manage to reach
one.
The author is a researcher with the Institute of American
Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
(China Daily December 4, 2007)
