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Last update - 02:44 26/11/2007

The Rosner Annapolis reader

Tags: Israel, Annapolis summit

From the summer Bush speech to the fall Annapolis conference: the players, the fears, the chances, the maneuvers, the calculations. This is what I've been writing.

For your convenience (or annoyance) I have gathered here some of the previous pieces I wrote on the coming Annapolis Summit.

My new Guest for this week, Tamara Cofman Wittes, will also discuss the meaning and implications of Annapolis. In her first post, she specifies three things to pay attention to when the meeting takes place: The degree of participation by Middle Eastern and Muslim states; the kind of follow-up efforts laid out at Annapolis for "the day after"; how many substantive ideas President Bush and Secretary Rice inject into their role at the summit.

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A previous Guest, Prof. Steven Spiegel, wrote that "The core and kick-off point for the international conference tentatively scheduled for Annapolis, Maryland next month is a declaration of principles (sometimes called a Statement of Understandings) between the Israelis and Palestinians. If the two parties can produce a suitable declaration, it will kick off a new process in which a series of conferences spaced to produce results could begin to address the key issues in dispute between Israel and the Palestinians and lead ultimately to a final settlement between them".

1.
From Annapolis - The summit of all fears:
If the signing of the Oslo Accords in Washington was the summit of hope, and the 2000 Camp David Summit was the conference of despair, then the international conference due to take place next month at Annapolis will be the summit of fear. There's the Iranian danger, the worrisome arms smuggling into Gaza and the fear that the window of opportunity is closing, to be followed by a radicalization of Palestinian politics. There's also the "quite troubling" Iranian influence on Palestinian terrorists. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned the House Committee on Foreign Affairs about all of the above last week.

So a shared fear of failure rather than hope for success is propelling the relevant parties toward Annapolis. That fear is multifaceted. Palestinian officials warn against a summit that would fail to meet the Palestinians' expectations, prompting Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to resign. This would result in governmental chaos, the Palestinians warn.

2.
From Announcing Annapolis was a mistake:
We can start from the end: It was a mistake. Not necessarily the decision to convene an Israeli-Palestinian peace summit in Annapolis or a "meeting," as the Americans insist on calling the event, but the early announcement of the planned timetable.

Whoever promised to hold the meeting in the fall will be forced to accept one of three possibilities, or perhaps a combination thereof: a postponement or cancellation, which will be interpreted as a failure; convening a meeting that is not ready, which means failure; and giving in to external pressures, which will lead to failure. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a mistake, and also tripped up President George W. Bush, when she dragged him into accepting this timetable.

3.
From The victory of the road map:
Annapolis was born of the frustration that is an integral part of the road map: In the absence of implementation, the peace process will remain stuck in the first stage. In the time since the document was signed, along with the plethora of reservations that accompany it, the Palestinian Authority has yet to prove that it is capable of uprooting the "terrorist infrastructure," and the Israeli government has refrained from the unpleasantness involved in "freezing settlement activity." Important lessons have indeed been learned: Israel discovered that the evacuation of thousands of settlers is not a recipe for quiet; the PA discovered that it is not yet ready to withstand a confrontation with Hamas.

Annapolis was envisioned as a subversive attempt to bypass this wearisome track. But at the end of the bypass, the drivers find themselves holding the same map, traveling forward along the same road. It is possible to call this a failure: The pretension that was at the heart of Rice's initiative has been discovered to be baseless. There will be no arrangement and no final status, no end to the conflict and no two states living side by side. Meanwhile, it is only Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas who are managing to live side by side - and even that only with difficulty. It is impossible to deceive reality with acrobatic wording.

4.
From The Annapolis dictionary: P is for photo-op:
Expectations, Realistic: Israel's Shaul Mofaz was in Washington this week for the traditional strategic dialogue, repeating the mantra that everybody - except for the Palestinians - has kept singing in the last couple of weeks. The mantra of "realistic expectations" really means low expectations in most cases and no expectations in Mofaz' case.
Final Status: Some think that completing the talks over final status issues in half a year is impossible. I think it's irrelevant. What's important today is not talks and agreements, but rather the ability to implement them. Tony Blair said this week: "Land for peace is not really the issue; or at least, of course it is the issue, but it is not the stumbling block any more."

5.
From Think of Annapolis as a big party:
This will be a big party. Between 40 and 50 foreign ministers will show up. Why are they coming? The answer given by Olmert applies to them all: because they were invited. No one wants to be seen as an obstacle, no one wants to snub the U.S. effort. Not after spending so much time criticizing the Bush administration for not doing enough on this issue. But no one realistically expects that the meeting will have a lasting impact on the future of peace negotiations.

In this context, the meeting has already been declared a failure by many observers. But there's no reason to give up the search for signs of possible, if modest, success. After all, the less ambitious the agenda, the greater the chance of success.

It all comes down to the questions every host asks: Did I get a good turnout? Who came? Did they look nice? Did they mingle? Were they happy? (The food will not be an issue on this occasion.) In Annapolis, the questions will be things like: Will the Saudis send their foreign minister or just the ambassador to Washington, a lower-level representative with no royal blood? Will he shake the hand of an Israeli? Will he smile at Olmert?

6.
From Running with Rice's clock:
Here is an interesting innovation in the trilateral Palestinian-Israeli-American relationship. If in the early 1990s Israel and its refusal (Yitzhak Shamir) were blamed for diplomatic failures, and in the end the Arab leader (Yasser Arafat) was blamed, now the blame is being placed at the Americans' doorstep. The implication: the weaker the Israeli leaders (Ehud Olmert as opposed to Shamir) and the Palestinian leaders (Mahmoud Abbas as opposed to Arafat), the more difficult it becomes to blame them for an action or failure. The children are having a hard time making up, and the responsibility falls on the kindergarten teacher. In any case, the teacher's time is getting short, a few weeks to the summit, a year and a quarter to retirement. "Will you be able to get it done in the time that remains?" she is asked in a discussion with CBS.

7.
From Rice as a supporting actor:

The word "bilateral" was mentioned nine times within 30 minutes during Monday's press briefing by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, David Welch. Nine times, eight of them were in reference to the talks between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas [Abu Mazen]. This is a pretty clear answer - at least an official answer - to all those who wondered who was responsible for furthering the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks: "an effective bilateral process," "a bilateral process that is productive," "we want a constructive and effective bilateral process," "are willing to envision bilateral negotiations," "galvanize this bilateral discussion."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives Wednesday for another round of talks, not the last one, before the summit, or "meeting" for furthering the peace process, scheduled for later this fall. Judging from her assistant's statements, she is meant to serve as a training wheel for a two-wheeled vehicle. Since the day President George Bush made his address on the Middle East early this summer, and to the point in which expectations were lowered, by summer's end, the formula has remained unchanged. The bottom line is that everything depends on the "bilateral," in other words Olmert and Abu Mazen. If they want, they will move forward. Bush and Rice promise to support them. It is a promise that is relatively easy to keep. More complicated is meeting their promise to recruit rejectionist countries such as Saudi Arabia to the supporters' camp.

8.
From A message to the moderate Arabs: With Hamas there's no reconciliation, only confrontation:
Here is a clarification that was issued this week: The Bush administration has no interest in a dialogue with Hamas. This was one of the main messages in Bush's speech, and it was directed at important listeners in three Arab cities: Ramallah, Cairo and Riyadh. Having been burned by the surprise of the Mecca Agreement, and the formation of the Palestinian unity government, the Americans wished to make it clear this week to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, publicly, that they would not look with understanding upon another reconciliation attempt that would essentially bring Hamas back into the arena. They hope, but are not entirely certain, that the message will be received by the Egyptians and also the Saudis - the perpetual potential facilitators of a "Palestinian reconciliation." The United States does not want a reconciliation. It wants a confrontation. It wants a decisive victory

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