U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has again paid a visit to the Middle East, held meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, spoken about the seriousness of the two sides in their efforts to revive the peace process, but has again left the region without issuing invitations to a planned U.S.-led peace summit in Annapolis, Maryland.
Listening to the main players, they all sound as though they have had a meeting to coordinate their positions and have decided on a unified line to feed the public. Over the last week, Olmert, Abbas and Rice have all said that they want to reach a Middle East peace agreement before President George Bush finishes his term in early 2009.
Olmert was first to talk about the "Bush" deadline. "If we act decisively together, we and the Palestinians, there is a chance for us to reach real achievements, maybe even before the end of President Bush's term," he said recently at a think-tank forum in Jerusalem.
"There is no intention to drag out the negotiations without end. There is no reason to again hit the foot-dragging that characterised our talks in the past," he added.
Then came Rice, on her eighth visit to the region this year, who said the Annapolis conference in the U.S. would be a "launching pad" for talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians that would lead to the creation of a Palestinian state. These negotiations, she hoped, "could achieve their goals in the time remaining in the Bush administration."
Finally, it was Abbas' turn to echo the chorus line: "All the parties agree and are determined to reach an agreement before the end of Bush's term in office, and we are determined that this serves as our deadline and we are working towards that," he said.
Setting deadlines for peace in the Middle East has never been a problem. It's meeting them that the sides have always found tough. And the fact that Rice left without issuing invitations to the summit, or setting a definite date -- it now seems almost inevitable that it will be pushed back to December and won't be held in November as had initially been hoped -- is a reflection of how far apart the two sides still are on drafting a joint statement that outlines a solution to the conflict, and which is to be presented at Annapolis.
The Palestinians want the statement of principles to deal with all the thorny issues at the heart of the conflict -- the borders of a future Palestinian state, the fate of Jerusalem, as well as that of Palestinian refugees -- and to set a clear timetable for negotiations after the Annapolis summit.
Israel, by contrast, wants a more loosely worded document that will be based on the 2003 road map peace plan that has never been implemented. According to Israeli officials, Palestinian negotiators have in recent days agreed to a formula whereby any future deal will be contingent on the implementation of the first stage of the road map, which has the backing of the Quartet -- the U.S., Russia, United Nations and European Union. This, they say, could now lead to the formulation of the long-awaited statement of principles for Annapolis.
According to the first stage of the road map, the Palestinians have to undertake a series of security measures, including disarming militant groups. The Israelis are obliged to freeze all construction in settlements in the West Bank, to evacuate the dozens of illegal settlement outposts that dot the territories and to withdraw from all major Palestinian cities.
Speaking in Ramallah on Sunday, at a ceremony marking the third anniversary of Yasser Arafat's death, Abbas hailed the Annapolis summit as "a historic opportunity to open a new page in the history of the Middle East based on the establishment of our independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital."
The Palestinian leader said his people were also seeking the "return of Arab land" captured by Israel during the 1967 Mideast War, as well as peace for "us and the Israelis and the peoples of this region."
But for all the talk of peace, there has been no Palestinian confirmation of the agreement cited by Israeli officials over implementation of the first stage of the road map. In fact, not only did Palestinian officials say over the weekend that there were still difficulties holding up the negotiations over a joint document, Abbas phoned Rice to complain that Israel was retreating from understandings that had already been achieved.
When Rice departed the region, she insisted that while there was still "very difficult work" to be done, the peace summit would be held "before the end of the year."
If that's correct, she will have already made bookings for her ninth, and most likely tenth, visit to the region this year. And she will know that she will have some serious head-banging to do if that summit is going to be held in 2007.
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