[IMC-Palestine] Resources on Annapolis Conference

Tue Nov 20 00:45:44 PST 2007

From: Angela Godfrey-Goldstein, Action Advocacy Officer
The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), Jerusalem
 <mailto:angela at icahd.org> angela at icahd.org;   <http://www.icahd.org/>
www.icahd.org  

"We’ll make a pastrami sandwich of them. We’ll insert a strip of Jewish
settlements in between the Palestinians, and then another strip of Jewish
settlements right across the West Bank, so that in 25 years, neither the
United Nations, nor the U.S.A, nobody, will be able to tear it apart.”
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Sharon> Ariel Sharon to Winston S.
Churchill III in 1973.

Watch ActiveStills/ICAHD photo exhibition Jerusalem Dispossessed:
<http://www.activestills.org/jerusalem/jerusalem.html>
http://www.activestills.org/jerusalem/jerusalem.html 

Read NOWHERE LEFT TO GO about Jahalin Bedouin forced displacement:
<http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=2&article=411>
http://www.icahd.org/eng/articles.asp?menu=6&submenu=2&article=411  

  _____  

From: US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
[mailto:uscampaign at mail.democracyinaction.org] 
Sent: 19 November 2007 22:11

<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=d%2BW6MdkjNSGxWhs0Ml
PypvtmRyxdrdVl> 

Resources on the Annapolis Conference

  <http://www.endtheoccupation.org/img/pic/annapolis.jpg> 	The
U.S.-hosted Israeli-Palestinian peace conference is due to be held in
Annapolis on November 26.  The US Campaign has written a fact sheet and
talking points to help frame the issues, give a sense of what is at stake,
as well as to describe likely political outcomes and what U.S. policy should
be toward Palestine/Israel.

To download the US Campaign's fact sheet on the Annapolis conference, see
attachment.  See below for talking points on the conference by US Campaign
Steering Committee member Phyllis Bennis.

UFPJ Talking Points #53 

Middle East Talks in Annapolis:  Photo-Op or Talk-Fest

By Phyllis Bennis

Institute for Policy Studies

15 November 2007

** There is one thing certain about the international (or regional or
bilateral) Middle East peace conference (or meeting or get-together) called
by Condoleezza Rice (or George Bush or Elliott Abrams) for November (or
maybe December): it's going to be held in Annapolis, Maryland (probably).  

**   Rice's sudden renewal of interest in and commitment to a new Middle
East "peace process" has two main goals: buying support from Arab regimes
for Washington's war in Iraq and escalating threats against Iran, and
providing a photo-op to restore Rice's tarnished legacy.

**The agenda for the talks has not yet been finalized, but it will not
include the goal of reversing Israeli occupation and dispossession and
ending Israel's discriminatory apartheid policies. 

**Because of U.S.-Israeli control of the agenda, "success" in Annapolis will
depend on whether the Palestinian leadership can be coerced to sign on to a
U.S.-Israeli text that many Palestinians will view as further abandonment of
Palestinian national goals, and many in international civil society will see
as violations of international law and human rights. There are serious
questions whether the meeting as currently envisioned will be convened at
all because of Palestinian refusal to accept U.S.-backed Israeli
preconditions.

**With the U.S.-Israeli-led international boycott remaining intact, the
conference is unlikely to lead to any even short-term improvement in the
humanitarian crisis exploding across Gaza. 

*****

There is serious doubt about even the official viability of the conference.
Ten days from the anticipated opening, invitations have not been issued
(because Arab governments and even the Palestinian leadership have not so
far agreed to U.S.-Israeli terms), an agenda has not been announced, and no
preliminary statement of goals and/or principles has been agreed to.
Palestinian officials have so far - at least publicly - rejected at least
some of Israel's preconditions. 

Besides her urgent need to update her legacy (which is currently that of the
person who stood before the world at the United Nations and announced "we
don't want a ceasefire yet" as Israeli jets bombarded Lebanon in summer
2006), Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urgently needs to win flagging
Arab government support for the Bush administration's failing war and
occupation in Iraq and its escalating mobilization against Iran. While most
Arab governments remain quite happy to join the U.S. crusade, their people
do not share support for the occupation of Iraq or for the anti-Iranian
fervor now ascendant in Washington. As a result, the unpopular and often
unstable Arab regimes (absolute monarchies, family dynasties and military
regimes masquerading as democracies) must provide some kind of concession
for the Arab rulers to pacify their restive populations. The latest version
is to offer a high-profile (however low the results) diplomatic show aimed
at allowing Arab governments to announce that the U.S. is now helping to
give the Palestinians a state. As the New York Times described it, "now the
United States is mired in Iraq and looking for a way to build good will
among Arab allies."

The Bush administration apparently anticipated that Arab governments, at the
highest levels, would welcome invitations to Annapolis. But so far, even
Jordan and Egypt, the two Arab governments with full diplomatic relations
with Israel, have hesitated, and Saudi Arabia has remained unconvinced. Even
if the Arab governments agree to participate, they may send low- to
mid-level officials, without the political clout - and photo-op value - of
kings and prime ministers.

The stated U.S. goal for the Annapolis meeting is to realize a two-state
solution. But in fact, if the conference takes place at all, the result will
be to continue the approach of the long-moribund 2003 "Roadmap to Peace." It
will, at most, provide a high-visibility launch of a new edition of the same
Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" that has failed so many times before: a
process based on acceptance of Israeli dominance over Palestinian lives and
territory. Its real goal will be to create something that the U.S. can
anoint as an "independent Palestinian state," while leaving largely
unchallenged Israeli strategic, military, and economic domination over the
entire area of Israel-Palestine.

The meeting's agenda will not be based on what international law, as well as
Palestinian and global public opinion, requires for a just, lasting and
comprehensive settlement of the conflict:an end to Israeli occupation and
settlement projects, realization of the Palestinians' rights of
self-determination and return, and an end to Israeli discrimination and
apartheid policies. 

If the U.S.-Israeli goals for Annapolis are realized, they would probably
lead to the following "two-state solution" results:

Borders

A Palestinian "state" would be announced on a series of non-contiguous
truncated Bantustan-like cantons comprising something less than 50% of the
West Bank plus Gaza. Israel might, with great fanfare, charitably "adjust"
very slightly the current route of the Apartheid Wall to seize slightly less
land than the current route (which Israeli Foreign Minister Tsipi Livni
earlier announced would be the basis for any border). All of the West Bank's
major water aquifers will remain on the Israeli side of the Wall.

Settlements

All the major West Bank settlement blocs would remain intact on the Israeli
side of the Wall, leaving between 180,000 and 200,000 of the current 250,000
West Bank settlers in place. With great fanfare most of the 105 small
symbolic "outpost" settlements constructed since 2001, which together house
only about 2000 settlers, will be dismantled.The entire Jordan Valley would
remain in Israeli hands. In exchange, Palestinians would be offered a "land
swap" which would almost certainly involve a significantly smaller amount of
land, of far less arability and viability.

Refugees

The Palestinian right of return, codified not only in general international
law but specifically in UN resolution 194 (1949), has already been
officially rejected by Israel but also by the United States, in the
Bush-Sharon letter exchange of April 2004. Israel's Annapolis agenda plans
to reassert that rejection through a demand that the Palestinians accept
language recognizing the "Jewish character" of Israel, or accepting the
definition of Israel as "the state of the Jewish people" as opposed to a
state of its own citizens. So far Palestinian officials have indicated they
will not accept that language, which Israeli Prime Minister Olmert says is a
precondition to any negotiations. The rejection of the right of return will
be further entrenched by an Israeli "offer" to Palestinian refugees of the
privilege of "returning" to the erstwhile new "Palestinian state," rather
than the right to return to their actual home territory inside what is now
Israel.

Jerusalem

International law (UN Security Council resolution 181, which divided
Palestine into what was supposed to become a Jewish and an Arab state) calls
for Jerusalem to belong to neither state, but rather to be a "separate body"
under international jurisdiction. Virtually no governments (not even the
U.S.) recognize Israel's annexation of occupied Arab East Jerusalem, and
numerous UN resolutions have reaffirmed that East Jerusalem is occupied
territory. The Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem (known as
neighborhoods, not settlements) include over 200,000 Israeli settlers, and
they will remain in Israeli hands. The Israeli position in Annapolis will
call for continuing Israeli control of all of Jerusalem, with some kind of
Israeli-controlled "autonomy" for Palestinian neighborhoods and parts of the
Old City's Muslim shrines. 

If the U.S.-Israeli agenda for Annapolis succeeds with an official
Palestinian imprimatur, the already reduced legitimacy of the Palestinian
Authority could diminish further, and the existing Palestinian political
crisis, especially the Fatah-Hamas divide, could be seriously exacerbated.
It is important to remember that the U.S. as well as Israel bear significant
responsibility for the divisions, tensions and violence inside the
Palestinian polity. In his leaked confidential report, former UN
representative to the so-called Quartet, Peruvian diplomat Alvaro de Soto
stated directly that "the U.S. clearly pushed for a confrontation between
Fatah and Hamas - so much so that, a week before Mecca [the Saudi-brokered
unity agreement between the two factions], the U.S. envoy declared twice in
an envoys' meeting in Washington how much 'I like this violence,' referring
to the near-civil war that was erupting in Gaza in which civilians were
being regularly killed and injured, because 'it means that other
Palestinians are resisting Hamas'."

The talks in Annapolis will likely not even address the current humanitarian
(as well as political) crisis currently ravaging the 1.6 million people of
Gaza. The U.S.-Israeli-led international boycott of Gaza, as well as
Israel's designation of Gaza as an "enemy entity" will remain in place.
Israel's restrictions on the supply of fuel and electricity to Gaza have
already begun to bite; with electricity supplies down, the availability of
fresh water is diminishing, and the declining stocks of transport fuel are
expected to reach crisis point some time in the next few days. New U.S. aid
to the Palestinians recently proposed by the Bush administration remains
stalled in Congress pending "success" at Annapolis; in any case, that aid is
almost entirely limited to support, especially military/security assistance,
for the Fatah-led government in Ramallah, with virtually nothing designated
for the desperately impoverished Gaza Strip. 

________________________________

Phyllis Bennis is a Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies and serves on
the steering committee of the U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation. She
is author of Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer.  To
sign up to receive these talking points and other occasional posts directly,
go to
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lftmRyxdrdVl> www.ips-dc.org and click on the "Stay Connected" button on the
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others you find interesting.)

US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation

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