And Miles to Go Before They Sleep

In a little more than a month, a host of Middle Eastern leaders might well heed the Bush administration's request to come to Annapolis, Maryland, to discuss possible solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The agenda might well include perennial deal-breakers, so-called "final status" issues, such as the contours of Jerusalem, the future of Palestinians still living as refugees throughout the region, the fate of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and security responsibilities. Complex issues all, each crucial to any potential agreement, each important enough to undermine the whole enterprise. Notably, some consensus about the conference seems to be taking shape across a wide spectrum of players. Unfortunately, that consensus is trending toward the notion that this gathering, if it actually happens, will not produce any meaningful results and could even move the process backwards.

Israelis and Palestinians should be excused if they appear jaded when it comes to conferences and dialogues and peace plans. In chorus, the populaces shrug: We've seen and heard it before, seen misery harvested from the most promising seeds, seen leaders (Israeli, Palestinian, American) we trust more than this lot fail in the same quest. Why bother getting hopes up, Israelis say, when Gaza is ruled by Hamas (which is supported by Iran), when past agreements to silence terror networks merely presaged more attacks, and when threats beyond the borders have only increased? Palestinians, meanwhile, sing similarly mournful verses: Why put faith in anything said by George Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Ehud Olmert, or Abu Mazen, as Abbas is known, when previous promises to stop settlements and reduce the numbers of checkpoints in the West Bank exist now in word only? Why commit to anything that cannot or will not be upheld, that cannot or will not end the occupation for good?

It should bode well that Abbas and Olmert have met several times in recent months, that Tony Blair has set up shop in Jerusalem and Rice will soon be on her way. It should. But it doesn't. And not solely due to remembrances of broken agreements past. The Bush administration is acting like a quarterback who shows up late for the big game believing he can lead exhausted, dispirited teammates--teammates who don't really like each other--to an against-all-odds comeback, then calls all the wrong plays. (They read the field poorly, the metaphor can continue, don't understand the flow of the game, and so on). Hamas is not invited, not involved at all, despite the inescapable fact that they represent a sizable portion of the Palestinians. Syria, a key regional player, is being treated like the "friend of a friend," told it's okay if they come, especially if that means the Saudis will show, but made to feel they're not really welcome (A point driven home none-too-subtly by the last month's Israeli raid on an alleged weapons complex and the related debate within the Bush administration ). As Scott wrote (see "The Brzezinski-Hamilton Report" below), a number of veteran American diplomats are pushing the Bush administration to change tactics, distasteful as that may be to all involved.

And the main participants. They agreed to write up a joint declaration ahead of the meeting, then quarreled over its character and specificity. They feign flexibility and willingness to tackle the thorniest topics, then almost immediately begin backpedaling and qualifying. Abbas, one of his aides said, is (again) facing the risk of mutiny from other Fatah leaders who are predicting he'll come home with nothing, lose face, and cede more of the pothole-filled Palestinian street, such as it is, to Hamas. Some in Abbas' inner circle are counseling that he skip the whole thing. Not coincidentally, Abbas yesterday declared he'd settle for nothing less than a return to the 1967 borders, something Israelis will not accept but which he can later cite to prove his nationalist bona fides should the talks not work out. (Fatah leaders also rejected out of hand an offer from Hamas' Ismail Haniyeh to renew talks between the estranged parties.)

Olmert, meanwhile, after pledging to focus on peace initiatives for the next year, regardless of how hard some of the choices may be, has spent much of two days this week answering questions from the police about past business dealings, the latest in a series of scandals that are fast becoming a defining aspect of his prime ministerial tenure. Last week, Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon, one of Olmert's consiglieres, said Israel might turn over some Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem to the Palestinians, an offer well short of Palestinian hopes but nonetheless a signal of some openness on the issue of the capital, and perhaps also a signal that Olmert is willing to face down hardliners at home who want to give up nothing, or those who'd like more. That drew fierce rebukes from those same hardliners, some of whom belong to Olmert's ruling coalition. Then came the news that the army decided to go ahead and seize West Bank land just outside east Jerusalem in order to construct a new road to Jericho, a move that suggests the government wants to move ahead with a massive, highly controversial expansion of one of the largest settlements, a project that would nearly cut the West Bank in half. This is the exact antithesis of a conciliatory gesture. And to top it off, Israel's Military Intelligence made known its belief that these talks are going to fail.

The two leaders, Olmert and Abbas, are limping towards Annapolis, stumbling into pretty much every obstacle in their path, creating some new ones as they go--as are their putative hosts--and perhaps now and again wondering if it is worth the long plane ride. They may well also be wondering whether or not, if they could reach any kind of agreement with each other, they'd be able to sell it to their people back home. Talking beats not talking, especially given what the alternatives have been, but at this point it's hard for people here to do more than hope it doesn't make things worse.
--Phil Zabriskie/Jerusalem