By Phyllis Bennis
Institute for Policy Studies
15 November 2007

** There is one thing certain about the international (or regional or bilateral) Middle East peace conference (or meeting or get-together) called by Condoleezza Rice (or George Bush or Elliott Abrams) for November (or maybe December): it's going to be held in Annapolis, Maryland (probably).

**  Rice's sudden renewal of interest in and commitment to a new Middle East "peace process" has two main goals: buying support from Arab regimes for Washington's war in Iraq and escalating threats against Iran, and providing a photo-op to restore Rice's tarnished legacy.

**The agenda for the talks has not yet been finalized, but it will not include the goal of reversing Israeli occupation and dispossession and ending Israel's discriminatory apartheid policies.

**Because of U.S.-Israeli control of the agenda, "success" in Annapolis will depend on whether the Palestinian leadership can be coerced to sign on to a U.S.-Israeli text that many Palestinians will view as further abandonment of Palestinian national goals, and many in international civil society will see as violations of international law and human rights. There are serious questions whether the meeting as currently envisioned will be convened at all because of Palestinian refusal to accept U.S.-backed Israeli preconditions.

**With the U.S.-Israeli-led international boycott remaining intact, the conference is unlikely to lead to any even short-term improvement in the humanitarian crisis exploding across Gaza.

*****

There is serious doubt about even the official viability of the conference.Ten days from the anticipated opening, invitations have not been issued (because Arab governments and even the Palestinian leadership have not so far agreed to U.S.-Israeli terms), an agenda has not been announced, and no preliminary statement of goals and/or principles has been agreed to. Palestinian officials have so far - at least publicly - rejected at least some of Israel's preconditions.

Besides her urgent need to update her legacy (which is currently that of the person who stood before the world at the United Nations and announced "we don't want a ceasefire yet" as Israeli jets bombarded Lebanon in summer 2006), Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urgently needs to win flagging Arab government support for the Bush administration's failing war and occupation in Iraq and its escalating mobilization against Iran. While most Arab governments remain quite happy to join the U.S. crusade, their people do not share support for the occupation of Iraq or for the anti-Iranian fervor now ascendant in Washington. As a result, the unpopular and often unstable Arab regimes (absolute monarchies, family dynasties and military regimes masquerading as democracies) must provide some kind of concession for the Arab rulers to pacify their restive populations. The latest version is to offer a high-profile (however low the results) diplomatic show aimed at allowing Arab governments to announce that the U.S. is now helping to give the Palestinians a state. As the New York Times described it, "now the United States is mired in Iraq and looking for a way to build good will among Arab allies."

The Bush administration apparently anticipated that Arab governments, at the highest levels, would welcome invitations to Annapolis. But so far, even Jordan and Egypt, the two Arab governments with full diplomatic relations with Israel, have hesitated, and Saudi Arabia has remained unconvinced. Even if the Arab governments agree to participate, they may send low- to mid-level officials, without the political clout - and photo-op value - of kings and prime ministers.

The stated U.S. goal for the Annapolis meeting is to realize a two-state solution. But in fact, if the conference takes place at all, the result will be to continue the approach of the long-moribund 2003 "Roadmap to Peace."It will, at most, provide a high-visibility launch of a new edition of the same Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" that has failed so many times before:a process based on acceptance of Israeli dominance over Palestinian lives and territory. Its real goal will be to create something that the U.S. can anoint as an "independent Palestinian state," while leaving largely unchallenged Israeli strategic, military, and economic domination over the entire area of Israel-Palestine.

The meeting's agenda will not be based on what international law, as well as Palestinian and global public opinion, requires for a just, lasting and comprehensive settlement of the conflict: an end to Israeli occupation and settlement projects, realization of the Palestinians' rights of self-determination and return, and an end to Israeli discrimination and apartheid policies.

If the U.S.-Israeli goals for Annapolis are realized, they would probably lead to the following "two-state solution" results:

Borders
A Palestinian "state" would be announced on a series of non-contiguous truncated Bantustan-like cantons comprising something less than 50% of the West Bank plus Gaza. Israel might, with great fanfare, charitably "adjust" very slightly the current route of the Apartheid Wall to seize slightly less land than the current route (which Israeli Foreign Minister Tsipi Livni earlier announced would be the basis for any border). All of the West Bank's major water aquifers will remain on the Israeli side of the Wall.

Settlements
All the major West Bank settlement blocs would remain intact on the Israeli side of the Wall, leaving between 180,000 and 200,000 of the current 250,000 West Bank settlers in place. With great fanfare most of the 105 small symbolic "outpost" settlements constructed since 2001, which together house only about 2000 settlers, will be dismantled.The entire Jordan Valley would remain in Israeli hands. In exchange, Palestinians would be offered a "land swap" which would almost certainly involve a significantly smaller amount of land, of far less arability and viability.

Refugees
The Palestinian right of return, codified not only in general international law but specifically in UN resolution 194 (1949), has already been officially rejected by Israel but also by the United States, in the Bush-Sharon letter exchange of April 2004. Israel's Annapolis agenda plans to reassert that rejection though a demand that the Palestinians accept language recognizing the "Jewish character" of Israel, or accepting the definition of Israel as "the state of the Jewish people" as opposed to a state of its own citizens. So far Palestinian officials have indicated they will not accept that language, which Israeli Prime Minister Olmert says is a precondition to any negotiations. The rejection of the right of return will be further entrenched by an Israeli "offer" to Palestinian refugees the privilege of "returning" to the erstwhile new "Palestinian state," rather than the right to return to their actual home territory inside what is now Israel.

Jerusalem

International law (UN Security Council resolution 181, which divided Palestine into what was supposed to become a Jewish and an Arab state) calls for Jerusalem to belong to neither state, but rather to be a "separate body" under international jurisdiction. Virtually no governments (not even the U.S.) recognize Israel's annexation of occupied Arab East Jerusalem, and numerous UN resolutions have reaffirmed that East Jerusalem is occupied territory. The Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem (known as neighborhoods, not settlements) include over 200,000 Israeli settlers, and they will remain in Israeli hands. The Israeli position in Annapolis will call for continuing Israeli control of all of Jerusalem, with some kind of Israeli-controlled "autonomy" for Palestinian neighborhoods and parts of the Old City's Muslim shrines.

If the U.S.-Israeli agenda for Annapolis succeeds with an official Palestinian imprimatur, the already reduced legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority could diminish further, and the existing Palestinian political crisis, especially the Fatah-Hamas divide, could be seriously exacerbated. It is important to remember that that the U.S. as well as Israel bear significant responsibility for the divisions, tensions and violence inside the Palestinian polity. In his leaked confidential report, former UN representative to the so-called Quartet, Peruvian diplomat Alvaro de Soto stated directly that "the U.S. clearly pushed for a confrontation between Fatah and Hamas - so much so that, a week before Mecca [the Saudi-brokered unity agreement between the two factions], the U.S. envoy declared twice in an envoys meeting in Washington how much 'I like this violence,' referring to the near-civil war that was erupting in Gaza in which civilians were being regularly killed and injured, because 'it means that other Palestinians are resisting Hamas'."

The talks in Annapolis will likely not even address the current humanitarian (as well as political) crisis currently ravaging the 1.6 million people of Gaza. The U.S.-Israeli-led international boycott of Gaza, as well as Israel's designation of Gaza as an "enemy entity" will remain in place. Israel's restrictions on the supply of fuel and electricity to Gaza have already began to bite; with electricity supplies down the availability of fresh water is diminishing, and the declining stocks of transport fuel are expected to reach crisis point some time in the next few days. New U.S. aid to the Palestinians recently proposed by the Bush administration remains stalled in Congress pending "success" at Annapolis; in any case, that aid is almost entirely limited to support, especially military/security assistance, for the Fatah-led government in Ramallah, with virtually nothing designated for the desperately impoverished Gaza Strip.

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Phyllis Bennis is a Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies and serves on the steering committee of the U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation. She is author of Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer. To sign up to receive these talking points and other occasional posts directly, go to www.ips-dc.org and click on the "Stay Connected" button on the right-hand side - then select the New Internationalism Project (and any others you find interesting).