Annapolis Update

Condi Rice pronounced herself "encouraged by what I heard" on her seventh peace shuttle to the Middle East this year. But in her five days of traveling between Jerusalem, Ramallah and Cairo, the Arab mood was not as upbeat.

In Cairo, although Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said he had "lots of trust and confidence [in] what she's doing," he also suggested that Bush should consider postponing the Annapolis Middle East conference intended to take place before Dec. 21. That was a strong indication that Egypt is not at all confident, despite Rice's intensive diplomacy throughout 2007, that Israeli and Palestinian leaders will be able to agree on a framework of understanding by then. Like many Arab leaders, Abul Gheit is worried that a failed conference will be much worse than no conference at all.

An awkward exchange between Rice and Abul Gheit on Egypt's domestic issues spoke volumes about Rice's failure to generate much Arab confidence in the Annapolis conference. Asked by a reporter about jailed political activist Ayman Nour, Rice instead of diplomatically brushing off the question made a point of saying she did bring up the case, and then went on to complain about the more recent detention of journalists. That prompted Abul Gheit to protest that this was a matter of legal cases, not politics. If Rice's shuttle was going swimmingly, neither she nor Abul Gheit would have allowed themselves to be dragged into such a public spat.

Abul Gheit was not alone. In his joint press conference with Rice, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas complained once again about Israel's failure to halt Jewish settlements in the occupied territories. He said: "I asked Dr. Rice to help us in stopping all settlement activities and freezing all settlement activities, including the natural growth, and that is according to the roadmap plan, and to stop the construction of the annexation wall and to abrogate the decision to confiscate lands from Abu Dis, Azaria and al-Sawahra that is supposed to expand the Ma'ale Adumim settlement in the E-1 area. And as well I asked that they stop the excavations in the vicinity of Al Haram al-Sharif al-Aqsa Mosque." For her part, Rice repeatedly told reporters that she had pressed Israelis, as well as Palestinians, to take confidence-building steps, yet she had no explanation as to why they had not done so. Afterwards, Abbas told reporters that Israel's actions were hampering his talks with Olmert and warned that Palestinians would not go to Annapolis "at any cost."

The problem for the Arabs is that they want Olmert to accept a framework for negotiations that commits Israel to reaching a final agreement on the core issues of the dispute--borders, refugees and Jerusalem--according to a timetable. Abul Gheit summed up the Arab concerns:

I can say that in my memory perhaps I had the honor of participating in the Madrid conference in 1991, and in Madrid in 1991 I have participated in a meeting that took place between the Prime Minister and the Israeli Foreign Minister at that time, Mr. Yitzhak Shamir. And Mr. Shamir told us -- and also in the meeting there was Mr. Netanyahu, also a member of the Israeli delegation. At that time, the Israeli Prime Minister told us, he said, "I will negotiate for ten years and we will not achieve anything."

This is a experiment in the past that should not be repeated and we should not put this -- we handshackle ourselves with an ironclad problem. But the issue here is we have -- talk about a target date, let's say six months, nine months or a year. But the idea is we cannot just simply negotiate endlessly and we cannot negotiate with an open-ended process. We have talked before the United Nations General Assembly. We have said 16 years has passed since the Madrid conference and 13 or 14 years passed since the Oslo agreement and five years has passed since the Roadmap, and nothing happens. Therefore, the issue what's really needed now is to maintain a target date with the hope that this will be an element of pressure on the two sides in order to actively work.

A psychological factor making the Arabs uneasy about Annapolis: they well remember that after the collapse of talks at Camp David in 2000, Clinton and Barak quickly heaped the blame on the Palestinians. This time, the Arabs don't want to be drawn into a peace conference that fails--for which they will again be blamed.

--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo