America has decided to revisit its mission to be a peacemaker between Israel and Palestine. This Wednesday in Annapolis, Md., President Bush met with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president who leads the Fatah party in the West Bank. The leaders of the three countries set a goal of a peace treaty by the end of 2008.
Hamas was not invited to the summit. They control the Gaza Strip after a violent takeover earlier this fall.
So was progress made in Annapolis this week? It’s hard to tell. It wasn’t a negotiation session, just a meeting to talk about negotiation sessions. Abbas gave a statement saying that the Palestinians expect the lands taken in 1967 to be theirs, whereas Olmert said that there would be changes, but specifically indicated that not all settlements could be dismantled. Both sides agreed that they would follow the steps outlined in the Road Map for Peace of 2003. Hamas stated that they would not respect any agreement made without their participation.
With the United States reentering the arena, though, there is potential to avoid some mistakes made during the first attempt at the Road Map. As Paul Reynolds of the BBC points out, “The role of the United States as ‘judge’ means that neither Israel nor the Palestinian Authority will be able to declare unilaterally that obligations have not been met.”
Israel has continued to settle the West Bank, despite promises to dismantle Jewish outposts before. The editors of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz write, “Annapolis will not lead Israel to any solution with the Palestinians unless Israel stops cheating and learns to restrain its expansion eastward.”
The United States is Israel’s most influential ally. If we don’t throw our weight behind Israeli compliance, Israel won’t budge. The situation with Hamas is complicated as well. They have three conditions on “final status” issues that will need to be met in order for them to respect a two-state solution at least temporarily. If Fatah actually manages to get these mostly addressed, Hamas may be satisfied even if it doesn’t happen on their terms.
The big three are release of Palestinian prisoners, 1967 land borders, and right of return for Palestinians to their homes from 1948. That last one? Ain’t gonna happen. It would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state. But if some kind of reparations are made, perhaps a deal can be struck.
Annapolis was exciting because of the number of other Arab countries that showed up, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan. The Middle East is tired of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Arab countries want to get their two cents in to any final deal.
The fact of the matter is, if Israel decided to release a whole boatload of Palestinian prisoners, give back all the land they took in 1967 from Egypt, Jordan and Syria, and make some reparations for Palestinians displaced in 1948, they could probably have two states tomorrow. The question is, how badly do they want peace?