US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been shuttling between various Arab capitals and Israel in an attempt to bring about a consensus on how to solve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute at the Middle East peace conference scheduled for this month. The question is: Is the US administration sincere in bringing about a just and comprehensive settlement in the Middle East? The real motive behind the decision to convene the conference and the hectic activities now going on have been explained as an attempt to guarantee total Arab support for the US stand over Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Rice has indirectly admitted that there is only a feeble chance of a peace agreement coming out of the Annapolis conference. In her recent statement to the US Congress, Rice said that the Palestinian president would not be able to offer any significant concessions without the support of the Arab countries. The aim of the conference, she said, is not to found a terrorist state but a state capable of fulfilling its security commitments, a democratic country that truly represents its people. She also alluded in her statement to the missed opportunity for establishing a Palestinian state before Yasser Arafat’s death.
Ironically, Rice is lamenting over the lost chance for peace while Palestine was under Arafat though US then said Arafat was a stumbling block to the peace process and that he was not democratic. After his death in mysterious circumstances, a democratic election was held in Palestine and Hamas came to power with overwhelming popular support. But US refused to honor the people’s verdict and accept Hamas as the legitimate government pushing the region into a deeper turmoil. The inhumanly pro-Israeli stand of the US and Western countries only helped create a humanitarian catastrophe in the Palestinian territories.
If you go by a recent report in the Israeli daily Maariv, Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert and Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas have agreed not to broach issues such as the final status, return of refugees and Jerusalem in the Annapolis meeting.
Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni have succeeded in convincing Abbas that the conference was meant to revive the peace process and issue a call to return to the old road map for peace and not to make any major breakthrough on basic issues, Maariv said in its report.
Olmert has also ruled out announcing any major concessions except to make a call for reviving peace efforts.
The Arab leaders whose support is key to bringing peace to the region are skeptical about the outcome of the conference without any specific agenda to settle the thorny issues of refugees, borders and Jerusalem.
It is apparent that President Bush wants to make the occasion a grand spectacle attended by world leaders representing the G-8 countries, the UN, the Middle East Quartet and the Arab states though it will only sign an empty agreement.
It seems that President Bush does not want the conference to fail as he considers it an opportunity to camouflage his failures on every other front. Bush would also apply maximum pressure on Abbas to attend the meeting though the Palestinians may be the losers in the long run.
I wonder why Bush cannot make the conference a feather in his cap by making a serious effort to bring about lasting peace in the region. He needs only to apply a little pressure on Israel to discuss the core issues and reach a final agreement. If he does it, Bush would be remembered as one of the greatest peacemakers in the world.
Arab countries should insist that they would attend the conference only if serious moves are made to achieve real peace. Otherwise their attendance would be endorsing the Israeli scheme to prolong the conflict unresolved with the express support of the US. Their attendance would be harmful to their own interests in the long run. The focus of the conference on more financial aid and reconstruction of Palestine economy and reinforcing the West Bank police would be a waste of time. It would amount to facilitating Israel’s seizure of more Palestinian territories. Rice’s efforts would be crowned with success if only Washington would acknowledge the legitimate rights of the Arabs. But it would be expecting too much from a White House too heavily committed to advancing Israel’s interests, whether legitimate or not.
