Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 2007, pages 10, 12

Special Report

“All Ashore” for Condoleezza’s Conference—Or Is It Headed for the Shoals?

By Richard H. Curtiss

IT’S PROBABLY TOO late for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s Mideast peace conference originally scheduled to take place at the end of November in Annapolis, MD. There are many details still to be ironed out and yet, if there’s going to be a summit, it’s probably now or never. Or is it instead headed for the shoals?

The Israelis don’t want to negotiate details—in fact, they probably don’t want anything except more futile promises. The Palestinians want as much detail as possible toward an outline for a final peace agreement so that once discussions on core issues begin, they can be completed.

But for Condoleezza Rice and dozens of others, there is no second chance. President George W. Bush has waited too long to address the most important problem on the international agenda. But Rice seems to still hope to achieve some results. There’s no question she realizes Bush’s eight-year term, which has produced almost nothing earthshaking, is virtually over.

Although Bush is still the president for another 15 months, one can expect few positive developments. The negatives, on the other hand, are great—war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the threat of war with Iran. A major incentive for Rice to proceed with the conference, however, is that, without it, there is only ignominy ahead for her.

Meanwhile, history marches on. On Oct. 24, Desiree Anita Ali-Fairooz, an activist with Code Pink Women for Peace, entered a House committee room with a handful of protesters and disrupted a Foreign Affairs Committee hearing. The chairman, Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), ordered her out. The woman, with what appeared to be blood on her hands, shouted within a few inches of Rice, “The blood of millions of Iraqis is on your hands!”

A few days earlier Rice, whose father and grandfather were ordained Baptist ministers, displayed her own deep religious reverence when she and others entered Church of the Nativity, the birthplace of Jesus, in Bethlehem. There is no question that she was deeply moved.

In an Oct. 23 Washington Post op-ed, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote, “Rice has shown determination and ingenuity in bringing matters to this point. Her next challenge is to steer the process so as to avoid what happened at Camp David in 2000 when Israeli and Palestine Liberation Organization leaders sought an agreement, only to see it blow up into a crisis that continues to this day.”

In fact, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has laid much of the groundwork for a final conference. At the 19th Arab League Summit held March 28 and 29 in Riyadh, Abdullah welcomed 21 Arab heads of state, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. “The cornerstone of the king’s keynote address was the Palestine issue,” according to Abdul Rahman Al-Sadhan, secretary-general of Saudi Arabia’s Council of Ministers.

As news editor Delinda C. Hanley reported (see May/June 2007 Washington Report p. 14), “Five years ago at an Arab League meeting in Beirut, all 22 Arab countries agreed to the Arab Peace Initiative, proposed by then-Crown Prince Abdullah. At this year’s Riyadh summit the Saudi king re-launched the Arab plan, which offers Israel full diplomatic relations in exchange for the return of Arab land captured in 1967. The plan also calls for the creation of a Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem and the right of return for Palestinian refugees. In exchange, Arab states offered Israel recognition and permanent peace.”

If these initiatives are presented and acted upon, the Annapolis conference could result in an amicable agreement, and there would still be a residue of hope. Otherwise, the peace process is over—unless it drags over to the next administration.

“Frankly, we have better things to do than invite people to Annapolis for a photo op,” Rice said at an Oct. 15 press conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, officially confirming for the first time the badly kept secret that the conference was to be held in Maryland. “I hope you understand that the president has decided to make this one of the highest priorities of his administration and of his time in office,” she added. “It means that he is absolutely serious about moving this issue forward and moving it as rapidly as possible to conclusion.”

Wrote The Washington Post’s Michael Abramowitz on Oct. 16: “Rice arrived [in Jerusalem and Ramallah] this week facing deep skepticism among Arabs and Israelis about such lofty statements, especially given what many here regard as the administration’s past disengagement from the issue—a position Rice flatly rejected today. With great interest by both sides in her visit, Rice and senior American officials are trying to tamp down expectations about what can be accomplished in the near term, nervous that a conspicuous failure to pull off the peace conference could spark new violence in the Palestinian territories or have other unforeseen consequences.

“‘Maybe the expectations are a little high right now, and the politicians on both sides are concerned about how to manage that,’ said one senior American official, who was not authorized to speak for attribution.

“Rice is trying to nudge the Israelis and Palestinians into agreeing on a yet-undefined document that could help launch the peace conference—perhaps followed by final negotiations.

“The Palestinian side wants the document to be as detailed as possible, in part to give hope to its population that a solution may be near. The Israelis are trying to make the document as vague as possible and are nervous that the political groundwork has not yet been laid for some of the difficult compromises that might be necessary…

“At the news conference on Monday [Oct. 15], and in other conversations with journalists, Rice has steered clear of many details of the private discussions but said she is pushing both sides to make compromises. ‘It’s not as if we are pushing them to do something they don’t want to do,’ she said, adding that both Abbas and Olmert ‘are developing a sense of confidence between themselves.’

“The meeting in Ramallah took place in the ramshackle compound where Yasser Arafat, the longtime Palestinian leader, spent his final days and is now buried. Rice was greeted warmly by Abbas, who made clear he expects her to pressure Israel on various issues—such as halting settlements in the occupied territories and ending an archeological dig in Jerusalem that Muslims have complained is too near a holy site.

“Abbas also called for ‘a real political horizon that will bring assurances to the people and launches a genuine and credible peace process.’”

At an Oct. 23 panel at the Palestine Center in Washington, DC Maen Areikat, Gregory Khalil and Khaled Elgindy discussed lessons learned from Camp David. Elgindy, the legal adviser with the PLO’s Negotiations Support Unit, concluded by saying, “There’s a conference being scheduled, a meeting, a summit, whatever it might actually turn out to be. Palestinians and Israelis are talking to each other, for the first time in seven years, on core issues. So, things look positive.

“There have been 100,000 new settlers since 2000…in the seven years in which there was no peace process. There have been 50 percent more closures than there were just two years ago…We think about the core issues being borders, settlements, refugees and Jerusalem. But water is a key issue that deals directly with the viability of a future Palestinian state.”

Clearly many crucial “final status” issues remain unresolved. Unfortunately, that seems to be just the way Israel wants it.

Richard H. Curtiss is executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

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