Despite harsh criticism from right-wing ministers about the Annapolis peace summit, the Israeli cabinet on Sunday decided to support the agreements reached regarding final-status negotiations with the Palestinians.

 

The Annapolis summit, which was the latest round of the Middle East Peace Conference, focused on the Palestine-Israel conflict in the United States, this was the largest international conference aimed at rescuing the Middle East peace process since the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991.

 

US President George W. Bush read out a joint statement reached by Palestine and Israel last Tuesday, saying the two sides had confirmed they would start negotiations over all issues between them immediately and resolve all of them next year.

 

This result brought the Middle East peace process a ray hope but could not change the reality: Palestine-Israel peace talks remain a treacherous path full of thorny obstacles.

 

The Palestine-Israel conflict has been the core of the Middle East crisis since the 1940s and the root cause of the lasting turmoil in the region.

 

The Clinton administration knew this clearly and made some efforts in pushing forward the peace process.

 

As for the Bush administration, it changed Washington's Middle East policy as a result of its "de-Clintonization" policy.

 

Iraq replaced the Palestine-Israel conflict as the central focus of the Bush administration's Middle East policy, with maintaining and tightening sanctions against Iraq dominating its Middle East maneuvers before Iraq War began. And what has happened since needs no mention.

 

The Bush administration unveiled the crude concept of a Middle East peace "road map" in June 2002, which included the establishment of a Palestinian state in 2005 and helped to improve the Palestine-Israel relations a bit as armed attacks decreased.

 

After major military campaigns ended in Iraq, President Bush announced in June 2003 at the end of the US-Arab summit held at the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt that the US was willing to help Palestine and Israel achieve real peace as soon as possible, while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice managed to bring the two sides to agree on a ceasefire.

 

Alas, but good things never last, as the "road map" barely survived two months when it was practically abandoned in August 2003. Washington was adamant that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat supported terrorism and determined to kick him out of the picture.

 

After the death of Arafat in November 2004, the US thought his successor Mahmoud Abbas could tag along and offered $350 million worth of aid to Palestine.

 

Throughout 2005, a relatively long period of quiet rarely seen between Palestine and Israel prevailed. In August that year, then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon launched his "unilateral action plan" and ended 38 years of Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip. Some Arab countries adjusted their relations with Israel, but again it was short lived.

 

In Israel, Ehud Olmert, who advocated tough policies toward Palestine, succeeded the Jewish state's government after Sharon succumbed to a massive stroke in April 2006. In Palestine, meanwhile, the extremist Hamas group won the parliamentary election and formed a government for the first time in history.

 

As Hamas was a bona fide "terrorist organization" in the eyes of the US, Washington refused to deal with the group. The in-fighting between Hamas and Fatah, founded by Arafat and loyal to his cause, has been going on ever since.

 

In the summer of 2006, military clashes broke out again between Israel and the Hezbollah extremists in Lebanon, and the US stepped on many an Arab nation's toes by supporting Israel's cross-border attacks on Hezbollah positions.

 

During the armed clashes between Lebanon and Israel, the US flew in more precision-guided aerial bombs to Israel, which already had the upper hand in superior weaponry, such as fighter jets and missiles, with abundant supply of fuel and advanced technology to boot.

 

Thanks to US pampering, a ceasefire between the two sides was delayed as Israeli forces kept on pounding their enemy. It was obvious the US was out of line as the "referee" when it made sure Israel fared well in this lopsided brawl.

 

Today, the US is faced with a series of problems in the Middle East: the security situation in Iraq has not changed fundamentally; the Iran issue remains in a fix and has become Washington's top concern, while the Palestine-Israel peace process is stuck.

 

The US now finds its Middle East strategy caught in a bind and one cannot but wonder how it would get out of this mess.

 

It seems the Bush administration's current strategy is to restart the Middle East peace process so as to win sympathy and support from moderate Arab countries for forming some kind of a "united front" against Iran.

 

The Annapolis international conference was convened against this backdrop. And the US strategy was given a footnote when Rice said before the peace conference that the Palestine-Israel issue should be settled alone rather than in conjunction with the situation in the whole region.

 

This means the US wants to separate the Palestine-Israel issue from issues such as Iraq and Iran to make it a breakthrough for its Middle East strategy.

 

The Bush administration said the Annapolis peace conference was to achieve three goals. The first is to serve as the starting point of negotiations over the establishment of a Palestinian state; the second is to focus on the implementation of the Middle East peace "road map" again, and the third is to rally international support for the Middle East peace process.

 

In a sense, the peace conference did reach its goals. The 49 countries and international organizations present at the gathering, including the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, the four parties involved in the Middle East peace "road map" deal and 16 Arab states, all expressed strong support for the peace conference.

 

The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the international community to support the Palestinian authorities' reconstruction, reform and fulfillment of its duties whenever necessary. Olmert and Abbas flew to Washington on Friday for negotiations immediately after the Annapolis conference.

 

The "hawks" in Palestine and Israel have been the main resistance forces to Middle East peace throughout the dragging and twisting process.

 

In 1995, then Israeli President Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres set their minds on the "land for peace" principle to resolve the Palestine-Israel issue, much to the dismay of extremist factions in their own country that led to a major setback for Palestine-Israel peace when Rabin was assassinated in November that year.

 

During the Camp David talks in 2000, the two sides abruptly went separate ways when they were very close to reaching an agreement, because the confrontationist elements within the Palestinian authorities pressured Arafat out of any compromise.

 

Now, "hawks" on both sides have voiced their response to the Annapolis peace conference.

 

A rightwing parliamentarian of Israel said he would not allow any compromise proposed by Prime Minister Olmert or the establishment of a "terrorist state" in the heart of Israel; while Palestine's Hamas group, which was barred from the peace conference, held a "counter meeting against the Middle East peace conference" in Gaza, which is under their control, claiming the delegation that went to the US "could not represent the Palestinian people".

 

It "would reject any compromise offered by either side on issues such as Jerusalem and repatriation of Palestinian refugees".

 

The Palestinian authorities and Israeli government today are both in a vulnerable position compared to the situation in 2000. At that time Arafat's power was at its peak as he was widely revered in Palestine, a position Abbas cannot reach today.

 

Today's Olmert government is also an underdog, as Olmert himself has been accused of involvement in corruption.

 

With the two authorities in such a vulnerable state, no one is sure they can carry out any agreement even if they manage to reach one.

 

The author is a researcher with the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

 

(China Daily December 4, 2007)