Boost for Middle East summit as Syria joins in

As Syria agree to send a deputy foreign minister to Annapolis - they would have sent someone higher but the Golan Heights is not on the agenda - to accompany the Saudi Arabian delegation, there can be no doubting that Israel's neighbours are giving this conference their very best shot, despite their understandable cynicism that they might be being used for a very expensive photo-op.

However, even before the conference has begun, there are indications that the Israelis are already dragging their feet.

First, they made the bizarre claim that the Palestinians must recognise Israel's "right to exist as a Jewish state". An extraordinary proposition that ups the ante considerably from the usual demand that the Palestinians recognise Israel's "right to exist", which is contentious enough in Arab eyes as it asks Palestinians to accept that the Nakba was somehow justified. Their latest formulation appears to take the subject of "right to return" off the table completely. After all, how can a Palestinian have a right to return to a Jewish state?

Now we find that Olmert is refusing to be specific about the final status of Israel and Palestine's borders.

Diplomats said Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, was trying last night to bridge the gaps. Negotiations have been deadlocked for weeks over whether the document should address the final borders between Israel and a Palestinian state, Jerusalem, and refugees. Israel wants to keep it vague; the Palestinians want detail and a timetable.

These are the first substantive talks to take place since President Clinton left office and the fact that they are taking place at all is an indication that even Bush has realised that his policy of allowing the Israelis to sort this out through force has been woefully unsuccessful. However, his deeply pro-Israeli bias will still be in place and I imagine very little actual pressure will be put on Olmert to change his stance on the issues that matter. Olmert can, simply by the very fact that he is attending, claim that he is searching for a partner in peace; but if - as reported - he wants to keep things vague, then one has to wonder how serious he is about actually finding a solution as opposed to attending simply in order to say that he tried.

U.S. National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley, has already started explaining the lack of a joint Israeli and Palestinian declaration as something unimportant, which fits perfectly into the Israeli script:

As Palestinian and Israeli negotiating teams scrambled on Sunday to formulate the statement to present at the summit, Hadley said, "The two sides took the unexpected step of seeking negotiations, and the declaration no longer needed to serve as a vehicle to prod them to do so."

"If we get something, if they can agree on some things as an input to the negotiations, that would be fine," Hadley said. "But I think it is really no longer on the critical path to a successful conference."

So, what was vital a few weeks ago no longer matters, simply because Israel refuse to give it. Indeed, the document needed to ensure that this was not simply an expensive photo-op is now being portrayed as a document to ensure that both sides "sought negotiations". So the very fact that they are meeting at all is sold as a success, rather than defining anything specific that they should be meeting to discuss. All of this perfectly fits into Olmert's wish to avoid details.

Indeed, Hadley outlined the President's thoughts on the forthcoming conference in ways that, strangely, seemed identical to Israel's thoughts on the matter:

In a briefing to the press Sunday, Hadley said that "the President will probably decide that it is not the time for him to put out specific ideas on how to resolve any of these particular issues" - namely borders, Palestinian refugees and Jerusalem.

So, no rush on any of the points which matter most to the Palestinians. Indeed, Olmert's spokeswoman made clear that the conference could have wider significance:

Miri Eisin, a spokeswoman for Olmert, said Sunday "Israel sees in a positive way the high-ranking participation of Syria in a conference which is clearly about the Israeli-Palestinian track, but could open additional avenues to peace in the Middle East."

In other words, it's really useful to bring together a delegation of Israel's neighbours that does not include Iran.

Why do I have so little faith that anything is going to come from this? Perhaps it's because the man who will need to push things forward has never shown any inclination to do anything other than "ride herd" as he calls it, which is the last thing that is needed at Annapolis. Bush, a President who likes to make bold statements and then delegate, appears not to understand that - when it comes to the Israeli-Plaestine dispute - the devil is in the detail.

Then there is his profound lack of knowledge and sense of history concerning this dispute.

Flynt Everett, once the top adviser to Ms Rice on Middle East matters, but now a strong critic of the President, last week related how at a 2002 meeting in the White House situation room, he heard Mr Bush say that as soon as the Palestinians had a democratically elected government, their leadership would be "less hung-up" on issues like borders and the status of Jerusalem.

Mr Everett was astounded. It was, he told the Washington Post last week, "one of the most profoundly ignorant statements anyone has ever uttered on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

So, I wish the participants well, but I have no great hope that much is going to come from this.

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Bush's last chance to leave a legacy of peace

Tony Blair, whose quiet but effective involvement as Middle East envoy has so far been largely positive, argues that progress on Israeli security, a better economy for the Palestinians, and a political solution for both peoples all go hand in hand. This is an improvement on the "security first" doctrine, which holds that no progress is possible until Palestinian militancy has been crushed. Western and Arab countries will have a chance at the summit to endorse Mr Blair's approach.

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Tags: Annapolis summit, Israel, Palestine, Olmert, Abbas, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Bush, Rice