WASHINGTON, 21 November 2007 — The US confirmed that it is issuing official invitations to a Middle East conference to be held next week at Annapolis, Maryland. The US State Department will start sending out invitations overnight for the event, US officials said on Monday.
Expectations for the Annapolis meeting are low, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice still pressing Israel and the Palestinians to finalize a document to be signed at the conference.
The move comes despite the Palestinian and Israeli leaders’ failure to agree on a joint declaration addressing issues such as borders when they met for the last time before Annapolis.
The two countries are making a last-ditch effort under US and Arab pressure to prepare a joint document before the US-hosted peace conference next week, US officials said yesterday.
Israeli officials have sought to play down the importance of a joint document, asserting that the centerpiece of the Nov. 26-27 conference in Annapolis, Maryland, would be a deal to relaunch formal talks on establishing a Palestinian state.
The all-out push by the Americans is intended to speed things up with the dormant 2003 “road map” for peace by insisting that the big issues relegated to later discussion, like the status of Jerusalem and the return of Palestinian refugees, be addressed immediately, even before the Palestinians begin to dismantle radical groups and networks.
But the US has already started referring to it as a “meet” rather than a peace summit, and is now placing more emphasis on a White House dinner next Monday night, the eve of the talks in a basketball court at the US Naval Academy.
Those invited to the talks include the Israelis and Palestinians, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria, US officials said.
High-level Arab attendance is seen as crucial to the success of the Annapolis conference and a deepening deadlock could jeopardize the participation of already hesitant Arab countries.
Arab League members will be briefed by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas in Cairo on Friday before deciding whether they will attend.
The Bush administration’s goal of having Saudi senior officials attend the talks would mark a breakthrough, as the Saudis have never before sat with Israelis at a formal event.
The US effort to get the Saudis to attend also reflects the complexities of a strong but informal alliance between Washington and Riyadh. At an OPEC summit on Sunday, the Saudis blocked an Iranian-Venezuelan proposal to begin pricing oil in euros instead of dollars.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak offered broad support yesterday for peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians in the United States next week but again pressed for a firm timetable for setting up a Palestinian state.
Significantly, twelve Jewish Democrats are among 135 US Congressmen urging increased assistance to the Palestinians.
Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., the Jewish chairman of the House’s Middle East subcommittee, and Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., an Arab American, initiated the letter sent Monday to Secretary Rice.
The letter argued that increased funding would be critical to bolstering Palestinian moderates now that Rice is convening renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. “We need robust diplomacy, the US needs to take a lead in this,” Boustany told reporters after sending the letter.
The vast majority of signatories was Democrats, and included top Jewish members, including Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif. Less than 20 Republicans signed.
The Jewish groups taking the lead in lobbying for the letter were all dovish: The Reform movement, Americans for Peace Now, the Israel Policy Forum and Brit Tzedek v’Shalom.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee also backed the letter, albeit without pro-active lobbying. That stance was controversial, and earned criticism from top donors to AIPAC who back right-wing causes in Israel.
