Palestinian-Israeli negotiations which began in secret on Monday are no more than a prelude to the collapse of the November peace summit, writes Saleh Al-Naami When former Israeli Prime Minister Manachem Begin, one of the few MKs who voted against Camp David, was asked what impressed him most about Ehud Olmert he replied that it was Olmert's cunning. It is a quality that has been amply displayed in recent days in Olmert's handling of the Annapolis Summit. On the one hand, Olmert proclaims his "absolute" commitment to the success of the summit while on the other is doing all in his power to undermine it. How else can one interpret his forcing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) to agree, in their last meeting together, to a "loose" memorandum stating the general outlines for a solution without mentioning any principles regarding the four final status issues -- Jerusalem, five million Palestinian refugees, permanent borders and Israeli settlements? And just to make himself perfectly clear, Olmert called this document "a non-binding declaration of intentions". His foreign minister, Tzipi Levni, was even clearer. The memorandum, she said on 3 October, should contain no more than "a declaration by both sides of their commitment to resolve the conflict by peaceful means". If there is any need for further evidence of Olmert's complete disdain for Abu Mazen it is to be found in his pledge to the ultra-right religious Shas Party that the document would contain no reference to the future of Jerusalem. Olmert said that he wanted the memorandum loosely worded -- for which read ambiguous -- in order to lower the ceiling of expectations arising from the summit since that way any result could be spun as a positive development. However artfully put, though, it is now abundantly clear that for Olmert the only successful outcome of the summit will be for it to fail utterly. If the Palestinians entertained any hopes the Annapolis meeting would develop into an international umbrella beneath which the conflict could be solved, Olmert dashed them in his cabinet meeting on Sunday when he pledged to his ministers that the meeting would not serve as a substitute for direct negotiations with the Palestinians. Then, to ensure that failure is a foregone conclusion, he vowed that the "loosely worded" memorandum would contain two points: a commitment by the PA to fulfil its obligation under the first phase of the roadmap and, secondly, a reference to US President George Bush's letter of guarantees to former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of June 2004. Olmert is fully aware these two points guarantee no agreement can be reached with the Palestinians now or in the future. Phase one of the roadmap expects the PA and its security agencies to dismantle and disarm the Palestinian resistance movements and to halt anti-Israeli incitement in Palestinian educational curricula, media and religious institutions. In his letter to Sharon, Bush pledged to support Israel's refusal to recognise the Palestinian right to return to the lands from which they had been expelled, its refusal to withdraw to the pre-June 1967 borders and its insistence on annexing Jewish settlements in the West Bank to Israel. Even commentators in the Israeli press agree that a summit held on these terms has no chance of success. Israeli machinations on the eve of the meeting have driven many Fatah leaders to prevail upon Abu Mazen not to attend. They fear that failure at Annapolis will sweep away any justification for their political platform, resting, as it does, on the possibility of a peaceful settlement to the conflict. Privately they express concern that the summit will produce nothing but a "second Balfour Declaration" and that will inevitably force Fatah to reassess its domestic relationships, especially with Hamas. Abu Mazen has long staked his success in confronting Hamas on the potential returns from a political settlement which he has repeatedly told the Palestinian people is within reach. Faced with failure in Annapolis the only options available to his movement will be to revise its policy towards the occupation and revert to armed struggle or to face almost certain extinction. Many Fatah leaders liken Annapolis to Camp David II, the 1999 summit whose collapse led to the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada. When Abu Mazen told Fatah leaders that he could not back out of the meeting they asked him to at least soften his conditions for speaking with Hamas. Abu Mazen initially acceded to this request and notified representatives of the Egyptian government that he agreed, in principle, to a dialogue during his visit to Cairo last week. He quickly retracted the principle after Olmert told him, in no uncertain terms, that if he spoke with Hamas he could forget about speaking with Israel. Others in Fatah predict that Abu Mazen will resign if the Annapolis meeting collapses, though recent developments suggest a resignation is by no means certain, even if a collapse is. The left-wing Palestinian factions which supported Fatah during its facedown with Hamas have made overtures to the Islamist resistance faction and agreed to take part in the conference of Palestinian factions to be held in Damascus in advance of the summit with the purpose of formulating a stance against "any concessions that Abu Mazen might offer". The conference will further isolate Abu Mazen and Fatah in the Palestinian arena which could also contribute to propelling Fatah leaders to turn over a new leaf in their domestic relations. Aware of the "danger" in the return of other Palestinian factions to coordinating with Hamas, Abu Mazen has campaigned vigorously to persuade Washington and Tel Aviv to invite Syria to Annapolis in the hope that Syria, in turn, would pressure the representatives of the Palestinian factions attending the Damascus conference into restraining their criticisms of the summit. So far, however, there is no sign of an invitation to Bashar Al-Assad. And just in case Damascus had got its hopes up, Olmert informed Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan that Israel will not discuss the future of the Golan Heights during the summit, which, he said, would be dedicated solely to the Palestinian track. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the Israelis that President Al-Assad should be happy just to receive an invitation and "not expect anything more". Rice was blunter in her remarks to Livni: "for the time being we'll pretend [Al-Assad's] regime doesn't exist so that the meeting can succeed." With a month left to go before the Annapolis summit, the Palestinians and Israelis are already basing their projections on the likelihood of it failing. And as different as these may be, they all proceed from the expectation of a third Intifada in the immediate aftermath of its collapse. By Saleh Al-Naami
