That the Palestinians would be the losers at Annapolis was a foregone conclusion, writes Saleh Al-Naami Shaul Goldstein, leader of the Israeli settlers in the West Bank, had only praise for his prime minister, Ehud Olmert, after hearing the speeches of US President George W Bush, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) and Olmert at the Annapolis meeting on Tuesday. Speaking to Israeli television Channel 10, this stalwart of Israel's far right hailed the outcome of Annapolis as positive because it would allow settlements to expand in the West Bank. Goldstein's glee is in stark contrast to the feelings of most Palestinians who, reading the text of the speeches, could be left in no doubt that they are the losers. The joint declaration read by President Bush at the start of his speech reiterated Israeli demands that the meeting would not issue a binding document of principles but instead a "declaration of intent". The statement underlined how far Abu Mazen had retreated from his earlier promises to the Palestinians that he would not go to Annapolis before agreeing on a declaration of principles that would address fundamental issues in the conflict, including the status of Jerusalem, five million Palestinian refugees and borders. The Palestinian negotiating team had also vowed not to travel to Annapolis until Olmert announced the freezing of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territory, a halt to construction of the apartheid, and the removal of military checkpoints around the West Bank. As expected, the joint declaration failed to announce any deadline for the completion of negotiations. Bush promised to exert "great effort" to ensure that negotiations would end before his presidential term but failed to provide any details of the mechanisms that would make such a goal possible. If Abu Mazen should be tempted to consider the Annapolis meeting, attended by representatives of 50 countries, as a success for the Palestinians on the grounds that the participating states will pressure Israel to adopt less intransigent positions, the joint statement, which stressed that negotiations between the two sides will be bilateral, with the American administration monopolising the role of adjudicator, must surely temper his optimism. The US administration, after all, has been monopolising the same role for 14 years. More alarming, perhaps, is the fact that the declaration considers the roadmap the sole reference for the negotiating process, suggesting that talks between the two sides could continue indefinitely. Bush may have stressed that both Israel and the Palestinians must fulfil their commitments outlined in the plan but the Americans and Israelis hold that these commitments must be successive. What this means in fact is that the PA must first fulfil its obligations and, if it succeeds, it will be the turn of Israel to meet its obligations. The PA then must succeed in the impossible task of disarming Palestinian resistance movements before Israel is obliged to lift a finger. According to the Israeli media, both Bush and Olmert told Abu Mazen in their tripartite meeting that he must regain control of Gaza and halt the firing of missiles. It is a scenario that holds out the prospect of a Palestinian civil war. Two months ago, Abu Mazen promised to work towards unifying the West Bank and Gaza. Now it seems the goal of unity is not to be pursued via dialogue with Hamas. Speaking to Israeli TV following Olmert's opening speech in Annapolis, Israeli deputy premier Avigdor Lieberman said that, "Abu Mazen and [Prime Minister Salam] Fayyad appeared more eager for Israel to reoccupy the Strip than the residents of Sederot [the settlement subjected to Palestinian shelling from Gaza]." Difficult as it is to count the incidents of Palestinian failure at Annapolis, one of the most chilling moments came when Bush described Israel as the "national homeland of the Jews". The significance of the statement is not just that it presupposes the Palestinians will concede the right of return, it also paves the way for Israel "to expel the 1948 Palestinians", as Benny Alon, head of the Israeli Moledet Party, stated. Even Abdullah Abdullah, head of the political committee of the Palestinian Legislative Council and a close associate of Abu Mazen, thought the statement was "catastrophic". "This means uprooting hundreds of thousands of our people from their land," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. Hamas spokesman Salah Al-Bardaweil told the Weekly that Bush's statement was tantamount to a "new Balfour promise", while to Abdul-Sattar Qassem, professor of political science at An-Najah University, it represented an "attack on the collective consciousness of the Palestinians... They want us to protect the Israeli occupation and its institutions with American money." Bush snubbed the Arab delegations that attended the meeting when he failed to make any reference to the 2002 Arab initiative, offering full normalisation with Israel in return for withdrawal to the 1967 borders, effectively draining their participation of any meaning. He then made matters worse by referring to his letter of guarantees sent to former Israeli premier Ariel Sharon as the most important reference point for the negotiations. The letter blocks the right of return, withdrawal to the 1967 borders and allows Israel to annex settlements built on occupied land. Syria, which was obliged to attend the meeting, was rewarded with no mention of the occupied Golan Heights in the speeches of either Bush or Olmert. The subtexts to Bush's talk of "extremists" and the "forces of darkness", and Olmert's call for Arabs to participate with Israel in the war against fundamentalism, were clear to all, not least Dan Schueftan, head of the Israeli national security research centre. The Annapolis meeting, he said, had never been about resolving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, but was convened to pave the way for an American strike against Iran in cooperation with the Arabs and Israel.
