Annapolis looks like just another step in the Israeli plan to expel its Arabs, worries Khaled Amayreh With the American-sponsored peace "meeting" in Annapolis, Maryland due to convene next week, Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) are having little success in formulating a joint declaration of principles governing a prospective resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The two sides have been holding intensive talks during which several position drafts were exchanged. However, the two sides couldn't reach even a general understanding of what a final-status settlement of the 60-year-old strife would look like. On 19 November, PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert held another session of talks in West Jerusalem. An Israeli spokeswoman described the meeting as "positive and serious". However, the PA official Saeb Ureikat labelled the meeting "frank and very difficult". According to PA spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeinah, talks with Israel "have so far availed to nothing in terms of substance". He told reporters in Ramallah that Israeli claims that the two sides reached or were reaching a joint document that would be presented at Annapolis were misleading and untrue. "There is still no agreement on the basic issues, the core issues," said Abu Rudeinah. Earlier, Abbas voiced pessimism about the success of the Annapolis meeting, citing Israeli refusal to make any clear commitment to give up all the spoils of the 1967 War and resolve the refugee plight pursuant to UN Resolution 194. Similarly, Ureikat spoke of a real crisis in the talks with Israel, saying during a symposium in Ramallah on 17 November, that "there are deep disagreements with Israel". He pointed out that attending Annapolis was in the Palestinian national interest in order to show the world community that the Palestinian people and leadership were sincere about reaching peace. In addition to the chronic differences on the core issues, Israel has come to view the meeting in the US, not as a place where serious decisions are to be made, but rather as a launching pad for new peace proposals. In other words, Israel is refusing to give any concrete commitment, saying everything would be subject to unspecified post-Annapolis negotiations. Frustrated by Israeli prevarication and perceived diversionary tactics, such as the insistence that the PA must recognise Israel as a state of the Jews, not of all its citizens, Palestinian officials have accused Israel of tampering with the "roadmap" and of seeking to dilute the entire peace process into "endless haggling, hair-splitting and linguistic sophistry", using the words of a high-ranking Palestinian Foreign Ministry official. This week, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared that Israel would order a freeze on construction of settler units in the West Bank. "The roadmap explicitly obligates Israel not to build new settlements or communities in Judea and Samaria or to expropriate land. We must fulfil those obligations," Olmert told a cabinet session, 18 November. However, Olmert sought to make sure that the freeze wouldn't cover "established settlements". This skewed interpretation of the roadmap is totally unacceptable to the Palestinians who have asked the American administration that they accept nothing less than a total freeze in settlement building ahead of Annapolis. Israel has said repeatedly it didn't consider major settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as covered by the freeze on settlement-building stipulated in the roadmap. Hence, the settlement freeze would only cover a few "unauthorised" settlement outposts established following the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising in October 2000. The fundamental disagreement on what the roadmap really means shows that the American-backed plan can't be viewed as providing a genuine basis for prospective peace accords between the two sides. Israel has been demanding the creation of a Palestinian state on less than 22 per cent of mandatory Palestine as a solution for Palestinian "national problems" everywhere including in Israel itself. Speaking during a press conference in Jerusalem this week, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said the future Palestinian state would provide a solution for Palestinians worldwide, including Israeli Arab citizens, in their struggle for national expression. "It must be clear to everyone that the state of Israel is a national homeland for the Jewish people." Livni added that, "the national demands of Israeli Arabs should end the moment a Palestinian state is established." The Israeli foreign minister refused to clarify her remarks, e.g., whether she was implicitly calling for the expulsion of the Israel's Arab-speaking citizens who make nearly 25 per cent of Israel's population, on the ground that Israel is a Jewish state and they are not Jews. However, the remarks, unprecedented in their brazenness, drew angry reactions from Arab leaders in Israel. Ghaleb Majadleh, an Arab Knesset member and Israel's minister of culture, sports, and science, was quoted as saying that, "the roots of the Israeli Arab citizens of Israel were planted before the state was established. They are residents of this country with rights, their residency and citizenship are not open for discussion and negotiations. Anyone who raises the idea of transferring the Arab population in Israel to the [occupied Palestinian] territories of the state of Palestine is anti-democratic." Ahmed Teibi, also an Arab Knesset member, said Livni's remarks unmasked her "extreme face" adding that she was preparing the ground for the expulsion of Arab citizens from Israel. "The Arabs were here before Livni and will be here after her." Livni's remarks, and the failure to reach a common conceptual framework of how a lasting solution to the conflict would look like, are already making many people pin very little hope on Annapolis to make even a semblance of difference in achieving a just and durable peace in the region. Palestinian columnist and political analyst Hani Al-Masri believes that the PA leadership itself is aware of the "lies and deception" surrounding the Annapolis meeting. "But they can't say no, because they are weak and completely dependent on the Americans and the Israelis." Al-Masri told Al-Ahram Weekly that the PA was facing a real dilemma. "If they [the PA] go, it will be bad for them because they would achieve nothing in real terms; and if they don't go, they will displease the Americans." "They have no other alternative... perhaps except Hamas."
