Condi Sets A Date For Munich II..And Syria's Invited!

Well, it finally happened...US Secretary of State Condi Rice has finally managed to name a date for the so-called Annapolis Peace conference, to be held November 26. What she had to do to pull it off and what the Israelis have had to swallow from their leader's rush to be a good lackey is something else again.

For openers, let's remember thatArafat II Palestinian capo del tutti d'Ramallah Mahmoud Abbas is only going based on these demands, none of which are subject to negotiation according to Abbas, his chief negotiator Ahmed Quriea or most importantly, the Saudis:

The piece of paper Condi wants signed, the `Annapolis Declaration' will include Palestinian recognition of Israel, but not as a Jewish state.

The Palestinians want all of the land outside Israel's pre-1967 borders, with minor swaps of Jewish land in Judea and Samaria for territorial land in central Israel, not the Negev as was previously bandied about. And they want half of Jerusalem, not just a few Arab neighborhoods, no ifs, and or buts.

The Palestinians want complete sovereignty over the Temple Mount, the holiest shrine of the Jewish people, and that has to include the the Kotel, the Western Wall. I seem to remember the respect the Palestinians have historically had for Jewish religious sites.

The Palestinians insist on the right to flood what's left of Israel with genocidal `refugees as a non-negotiable...with no mention or consideration of the rights of the almost one million Jews ethnically cleansed from the Arab world.

And most importantly, Abbas and the Palestinians want a deadline for final negotiations to be concluded by August, 2008 the date of the Republican national Convention. or, in other words, Abbas wants the deal set in stone while Bush and Condi Rice are still around to lean on Israel to muscle it through, before a new GOP nominee is chosen...who might just end up being a strongly pro-Israel candidate like Rudy Giuliani who sees little value for the US or for peace in the region in creating a second Arab Palestinian state unless the Palestinians fully comply with the requirements of both Oslo and the first phase of the Roadmap first. Originally, the US had said that neither Israel or the US would commit to this kind of deadline, but the Americans became more flexible when Abbas threatened not to appear at all.

Amazingly, Olmert still agreed to attend this farce.

Not only that, but Condi Rice got Syria into the picture.

As a reward for sponsoring terrorism throughout the region, subverting Lebanon's democracy and arming Hezbollah and acting as a conduit for terrorists killing US troops in Iraq, the Syrians got invited to this party as well.

Rice personally invited Syrian foreign minister Walid Mualem to the Annapolis shindig, reportedly on the orders of President Bush. Syria’s price for attending was a condition that negotiations on the Golan be on the table and mentioned in the final draft of the Annapolis Declaration, as well as whatever President Bush and Condi Rice can muscle out of Olmert on the Palestinian's demands.

According to the Palestinian News agency WAFA, Syrian deputy prime minister Abdullah Dardari reportedly announced that Syria would only attend if the restoration of the Golan to Syrian hands was part of the `peace' conference. If the Syrians show up, it's obvious that the Israelis were subjected to pressure by the Bush Administration to accept this or be blamed for scuttling the Annapolis conference.

How futile this all is was underlined Sunday, November 5 when a Palestinian Fatah unit of 300 US trained `special forces' loyal to Abbas, weretossed out of Nablus ( Shechem) with heavy casualties ( at least five, if my sources are correct) by a mixed group consisting of the Fatah al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Hamas affiliated Palestinian Fronts.

Abbas' `special forces', armed and trained at the expense of the American taxpayer were there to put on a show and try to carry out an `anti-terror' operation at the Balata refugee camp timed to coincide with Condi Rice's meeting with Abbas in Ramallah, to show that Abbas and the PA were capable of controlling terrorism in the Palestinian ruled areas of the West Bank prior to the Annapolis shindig.

Instead, they got the proverbial heads handed to them, as somebody in the PA apparently tipped off the Hamas forces, who set up a nasty ambush for Abbas' soldier boys and sent them running...just like in Gaza.

And now you know why the Palestinians jokingly refer to Abbas as `the mayor of Ramallah' - because he controls little else.

Another problematical point in the proposed Annapolis `peace' agreement is Hamas. Part of the rationale of the Bush Administration and the Olmert government dealing with Abbas is that he's not Hamas, and Abbas supposedly has pledged not to bring Hamas back into the Palestinian fold.
Hamas, of course, is a designated terrorist group and dealing with them is contrary to US law.

So, riddle me this: what happens if, after extracting the maximum from Israel and the US, Abbas and Hamas unite again, or Hamas simply deposes Abbas? Hamas never signed anything, is fully committed to Israel's destruction and regards no agreement with the Zionist entity as binding.

Or, in other words, Israel gives up land and strategic concessions to an avowed enemy and makes another part of the Middle East off limits for Jews in exchange for.....absolutely nothing.

On the other hand, if Olmert gives away anything less to the Palestinians than their full demands and the Palestinians revert to their usual tactics, or Abbas is subsequently deposed,Israel can be blamed for `failure of the peace process' and any subsequent negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians start out at the Annapolis benchmark, rather than from scratch which is exactly what has happened at every subsequent `negotiation' between Israel and the Palestinians since Oslo. Again, same old stuff. The Israelis give up land and strategic concessions and the Palestinians give up absolutely....nothing.

And the above scenarios don't even take into account that Olmert and Abbas have something important in common. Neither one of them has any kind of support on the ground at home, and any deals that get made will almost certainly end up being repudiated politically.

In short, what Israel has been manipulated into is a no-win situation, no matter which way things go. And the US has lent its prestige to yet another attempt at weakening an ally and strengthening our enemies.

Olmert would never do it, of course - he needs to distract Israeli public opinion away from his numerous indictments or fraud and corruption - but a real leader would have declined to appear at Annapolis.

And the US should never have tried to finesse this in the first place. But that, of course would have upset the Saudis. Which is why Annapolis is taking place, on the Arab's terms, in the first place.