There are several reasons to find the Annapolis Middle-East Summit a non-starter. First, any attempt by the Bush Crime Family to be at all 'diplomatic' is facially ridiculous. Second, even if its host was not a completely flawed figure, the underlying reason for the Summit is doomed to failure for dozens of reasons, the first being that the State of Israel is never going to cede land for a State of Palestine. And, third, the participants in the Summit have absolutely no reason to trust each other farther than they could throw them.
I. No one should trust the Bush Crime Family.
For this writer, it is merely a fact of life. The sun rises in the East, and the Bush Crime Family cannot be trusted. But, I realize that my view may be somewhat extreme, and some might say that 'at least they are finally trying!' If that is your world-view, then support it and I wish you luck. However, I will stick with my intuition, and buttress it with reality and commentary--even when the commentary comes from a source that I rarely, if ever, agree with. This from The Jerusalem Post and their columnist Ms. Glick, who apparently has received a secret copy of the draft agenda:
The draft document shows that the Palestinians and the Israelis differ not only on every issue, but differ on the purpose of the document. It also shows that the US firmly backs the Palestinians against Israel. As the draft document makes clear, Israel is trying to avoid committing itself to anything at Annapolis. For their part, the Palestinians are trying to force Israel's hand by tying it to diplomatic formulas that presuppose an Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines and an Israeli acceptance of the so-called "right of return" or free immigration of foreign Arabs to Israel.
The Palestinians are also trying to take away Israel's right to determine for itself whether to trust the Palestinians and continue making diplomatic and security concessions or not by making it the responsibility of outside parties to decide the pace of the concessions and whether or not the Palestinians should be trusted.
As the leaked draft document shows, the Americans have sided with the Palestinians against Israel. Specifically, the Americans have taken for themselves the sole right to judge whether or not the Palestinians and the Israelis are abiding by their commitments and whether and at what pace the negotiations will proceed.
But the Americans have shown themselves to be unworthy of Israel's trust. By refusing to acknowledge Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party's direct involvement in terrorism and indeed the direct involvement of his official Fatah "security forces" in terrorism, the Americans have shown that their benchmarks for Palestinian compliance with their commitments to Israel are not necessarily based on the reality on the ground. Then too, the US demands for wide-ranging Israeli security concessions to the Palestinians even before the "peace" conference at Annapolis have shown that Israel's security is of little concern to the State Department. [emphasis added]
II. Israel will never cede land for a Palestinian State.
I wrote this some time ago, but, it is still representative of why a Palestinian State will never happen in the Land of Israel:
I would like to frame this debate in its simplest terms: Israel, being the variable with the most power in this equation, must decide to change the status quo and cede a significant amount of its power to the Palestinians. Once this power has been shifted to the Palestinians, they can create a Palestinian state in the Land of Israel. An assumption I am making is that power is the most important variable in the Middle East. This is based on my studies of the region, and has been memorialized in a recent book by Jean Allain, titled International Law in the Middle East.
Another assumption is uncontroversial: That Israel is the occupying or the controlling power over the Palestinians, at the moment. Their forces are used to order everyday Palestinian existence and movements throughout the Land of Israel, to varying degrees.
The peace group is suggesting that Israel will have an epiphany, either through magical fairy dust, as a result of public pressure, or, out of a sudden pang of guilt and will decide that the status quo is not preferred. No, Israel has, so the story goes, decided to allow a Palestinian state to be created. And, for the sake of brevity, I will refer to this new state as 'Palestine', a state located in the Land of Israel.
However, this group does not give us any indication of the level of understanding they have of what 'statehood' means or implies. Palestine will necessarily have sovereignty.
This, for purposes of this diary, means that they will have the right to trade, sell, or use as they see fit its natural resources. An example that is quite relevant is 'water rights' to Palestine, to the exclusion of Israel.
As a state, Palestine will be able to enter into treaties and agreements with other states for goods and/or services.
They will be able to join international bodies, sign human rights treaties, arm's agreements, trade agreements. They will be able to litigate their trade or other agreements in international courts of arbitration and/or justice.
They can sue other states for past and present grievances for violations of the target state's obligations under treaties that they have signed and broken, to the detriment of the citizens of Palestine.
They can have their own armed forces, jets, tanks, bombs. They can as many guns, bullets, bombs, bombers that they can afford, from whichever country on the planet that will sell it to them.
They can enter into intellectual property agreements with any other state. The North Koreans, the Iranians, the Syrians, or, the Egyptians or any other state for any reason.
But, the fairy-tale spinners tell us, without addressing ANY of these concerns, that Israel will do so. And, we are supposed to go along with the fairy-tale and believe this is all possible and within our grasp.
Well, dear readers, you can believe the fairy-tale. It is human nature to hope and to dream for the irrational. I buy a lottery ticket from time-to-time, knowing that I will not win, but, wondering how I might spend the money when I do!
III. The participants have no reason to trust each other.
Perhaps the best 'parable' of the hopelessness of this quaint meeting, is this:
Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations decided Friday to attend next week’s U.S.-sponsored Middle East peace conference. But the Saudi foreign minister said he would not allow "theatrics" such as handshakes with Israeli officials, insisting the meeting make serious progress.
or, this, assuming Bahrain has a representative at the Summit:
Bahraini MPs were yesterday accused of having the blood of dead Palestinians on their hands in a blistering attack by Foreign Minister Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa.
He launched the offensive in parliament after one MP said he should wash his hands with water six times and then rub them with sand after shaking hands with his Israeli counterpart Tzipora "Tzipi" Livni.
The unofficial meeting took place on the sidelines of a summit at the United Nations, New York, last month and was yesterday condemned by MPs who called for severing of any ties with Israel.
The Saudis will be there...but, please don't expect them to shake the hands of the Israelis!
So, one might ask, are the fucking Saudis even showing up?
Ms. Glick has an interesting take on the reasons for the meeting:
BUT IF Olmert's, Livni's and Barak's willingness to compromise their nation's security is a function of their weakness, what explains Rice's and Bush's behavior? Why are they weakening Israel and pushing for the establishment of yet another Middle Eastern terror state? What US interest do they think they are advancing by acting as they are? Over the past several weeks, a number of theories have been raised to explain their behavior. The most frequent explanation is that Rice and Bush are championing Palestinian statehood at Israel's expense in a bid to mobilize a coalition of Sunni Arab states to cooperate with the US against Iran.
According to this theory, if Annapolis is seen as a success, then the Arab states will be convinced that the US is worth supporting on Iran. This theory has several flaws. First, as the US's treatment of Israel makes clear, success in Annapolis involves weakening Israel whose destruction Iran seeks and empowering the Palestinians whom Iran supports. This means that far from weakening Iran, success at Annapolis advances Iran's interests.
IV. Conclusion
Whatever happens in Maryland will be completely useless. At best, the talks will offer more false hope to Palestinians that they will indeed have a State; it will offer Israel cover for a few more years in their game of 'Well, if only the Palestinians would do _________, or at least _________, Israel would be more then happy to give ________________!'. It will offer the Bush Crime Family a 'legacy moment' filled with photo-ops and smirking politicians from all over the planet, all there because Bush is so fucking important.
Or, at worst, it will be as Ms. Glick suggests: Merely a ruse to get Arab-state backing for an impending attack on those nasty Persians!