After Annnapolis: Tough Road to Peace

Bush, Olmert and Abbas were all unfailingly correct in Annnapolis; they moved with slow-motion caution, like a troupe of mime artists tip-toeing over broken glass. Even still, their actions enraged the hardliners back home.

In Gaza, Islamic militants of Hamas brought 250,000 protesters out onto the streets, and it was hard to tell who made them the maddest: Bush, Olmert or their own Palestinian president. The rage wasn't only visible inside the Hamas stronghold of Gaza; similar mass protests also broke out in the West Bank, where Abbas is supposed to be popular (though his popularity can't be helped by the TV images of his police slamming into protesters with a viciousness that made some Palestinians almost nostalgic for Israeli cops.). Conclusion: the idea of Palestinian coexistence with the Jewish state is still a tough, if not impossible sell.

Olmert faced similar fury from Israeli ultra-nationalists. A key to any negotiated accord with the Palestinians is the withdrawal of Jewish settlements from the Palestinian territories. And one can only hope that after Annapolis, the Bush Administration won't take the continued expansion of these settlements so light-heartedly. The religious nationalists see otherwise; for them, any removal of settlers from Biblical Judea and Samaria is a sin against Jewish destiny, and Olmert is the villain.

The smile fixed on Olmert's face for his many photo-ops with Bush and Abbas in the U.S. will fade as soon as his plane lands at Ben Gurion airport. The bad news awaiting him is that the powerful, right-wing Ne'emanei Eretz Israel announced on Thursday that it plans to defy Olmert -and the Israeli military-and set-up three new, illegal outposts in the West Bank, and to return to five other hilltop stockades that they had vacated earlier. "This is our answer to the prime minister's plan," says Daniella Weiss, a settler leader. "The gravest thing about the Annapolis peace conference' is Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's barefaced talk of a Palestinian state.” She urged the settlers to “take to the open spaces.” She added, “Instead of waiting in fear for the next evacuation, God forbid, it is far better to be building the next community. Anyplace in Israel where we do not reside in, is home to terrorists," said Weiss.

Annapolis was the easy part. It will be far harder for Olmert and Abbas to sell a peace plan to their own people.

By Tim McGirk/Jerusalem