Women attend a protest demanding Hamas and Fatah [engage in] dialog in Palestine. Image Credit: Mohammed Omer, Rafah Today 2007-11-24.

In the same report Abbas said the Palestinians would not be attending without a document. There is no document, he is still attending and the Arab world was skeptical as well, yet Saudi Arabia and now Syria are going; and it is just going to be a "photo-op" after all.

The Israeli media is hosting many stories about how this conference will mean absolutely nothing. Yedioth is reporting through one of its columnists Israel will be bound by nothing and that Palestinian expectations are so low there won't even be any intifada:

"Despite the apocalyptic assessments of top intelligence officials, there are almost no risks for Israel when it comes to attending Annapolis. It is already clear that no binding decisions that pertain to the essence of a final-status agreement will be taken (Olmert, Barak and Livni, partly thanks to Lieberman and Eli Yishai, were able to thwart Rice's initiative to imbue the summit with genuine diplomatic-security substance, which could have served as a basis for future Palestinian demands without giving anything in return on their part).

In addition, it is clear that there are no great expectations from Annapolis on the Palestinian street. Therefore, there will be no outbreak of violence in the territories, or heaven forbid, an Intifada, in the wake of the event."

A detailed analysis of the diplomacy and low expectations on the Israeli side can be found in Jerusalem Post:

"Olmert seems to be going to Annapolis knowing that he has to go, that there will be a lot of smiles and handshakes and pomp and ceremony, but that at the end of the day - despite his comments that an agreement could be wrapped up in a year - it is likely little will change ..."

In the US even Mitt Romney, (the Republican candidate for president who believes Joseph Smith received visions from an "angel" sometime in 1820's who told Smith of "golden plates" that had a enhanced version of "God's revelation" - that Smith then translated and published in 1830 as the Book of Mormon) has ridiculously weighed in. Romney, bringing this richly supertitious background to bear on a situation already laden with religious superstition dating back even farther than Mormonism told Jerusalem Post in an interview:

"I do not believe that this is a time when my expectations would suggest a major peace breakthrough," and Romney went on to say "It's important to me that we not in any way place pressure on Israel to take action which would further weaken its negotiating hand."

The Palestinians and the Arab world are on notice that Mitt Romney is not their friend, but as the JPost article reminds its readers, Rudy Giuliani thinks even less of Palestinians and Arabs basically calling them a bunch of whiners:

"Too much emphasis has been placed on brokering negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians - negotiations that bring up the same issues again and again. It is not in the interest of the United States, at a time when it is being threatened by Islamist terrorists, to assist the creation of another state that will support terrorism."

Silly Giuliani, Iraq is a Islamic theocracy created by George W. Bush, did you not get the memo or read the Iraqi constitution?

Yes, those silly "same issues" - the ones contained in UN Resolutions 194, 242 and 338 are often brought up. Maybe if Israel actually had to follow international law the way the US expects Arab nations to follow it there might just be a breakthrough. But it won't come from Republicans and it won't come from Bush and Annapolis. Condi Rice should just book herself a couple of weeks in some luxury locale with lots of shoe stores where she can forget about the humiliation she is about to go through.

President Bush already gave up Palestinian land he does not have title to when he gave Ariel Sharon some "letters of assurance" that major settlement blocks in the West Bank will be kept intact. Since that in itself guarantees that there will never be peace, Rice should not have gone down this path. Only when a US president stands up to Israel and says "follow the UN resolutions or we will stop the billions of dollars of arms and otherwise prop-up money the American taxpayer gives you" will the world see a fair and balanced settlement between Israel and the Arab world.

What About Saudi Arabia?

Indeed, Saudi Arabia will be coming to the party at Annapolis. Some call that in itself a sign of success. Other observers see it as a move by the House of Saud to put the final cards on the table. For more than five years the Arab League has had on the table a Saudi proposal for full peace and full recognition of Israel by the Arab world, the Arab Peace Initiative. This framework was again unanimously agreed upon in March 2007. When Westerners or Israeli's make the claim that the Arab world does not want peace, they are not telling the truth. The Arab Initiative is proof, and even Bush himself has evoked its name.

It simply builds on a well-known framework. Israel must get itself off the land it does not own (Sheeba Farms, Golan Heights, all of Gaza and the West Bank) and retreat fully to the internationally recognized borders of June 4, 1967, East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital city, and an "agreed upon" solution to the refugee problem as outlined in UN Resolution 194. In return, Israel gets full recognition, peace and security.

Some analysts claim that it is not in the Arab interest for there to be an agreement. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Saudi's and the rest of the Arab countries had better come away from this much shortened summit that shrunk to an hours long meeting with a solid assurance that a full peace deal is in hand or the whole thing can turn more sour than anyone has yet imagined.

In fact, the Washington Post covered the scepticism of the Arab world and the real reason they are going according to Arab League chief Amr Moussa:

"Arab leaders made clear they were on board in part to ensure that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas does not make any damaging concessions to Israel in any negotiations on a final peace deal. Israel has dangled the possibility of an accord as early as the end of 2008.

Asked if Abbas has a free rein to negotiate a deal, Arab League chief Amr Moussa underlined that Arab countries would not back an agreement deal that did not meet an Arab peace plan calling for a return of all lands Israel seized in the 1967 war.

'I repeat again and again that we are governed by the Arab initiative in all behaviors and ... and in our agreement to end the Arab-Israeli conflict,' he told reporters after the foreign ministers of the league's member states decided to go to Annapolis."

When they go back empty handed, and Israel is still building settlements, still building a wall that is stealing even more Palestinian land, and the siege of Gaza gets ever worse with a cancer patient dying after being denied entry for a hospital referral, and electricity due to be cut-off on December 2, Iran will have completely won because it will have been proved that the Arabs are not capable of getting the US and Israel to adhere to UN resolutions.

If a country can then pick and choose what international obligations it wants to honor, and given that Israel is the largest violator in this regard with full US administration support, why should anyone have to follow the rules? Israel thumbs its collective nose at the world even as it subjugates the people of Gaza, with US help, into utter oblivion amid a seething cauldron of hate. Israel ignores the International Court of Justice who ruled its apartheid wall illegal in June 2005.

Anyone who takes an honest look at a map of the West Bank and the extent of Israeli settlements, the apartheid wall and "closed military areas" can easily see that there is no room for a Palestinian state unless Israel removes all its illegal settlements. George W. Bush has no right to make promises to Israeli's that they will be able to keep land that they occupy illegally, as all readers will recall, Texans would not let anyone reside on their land illegally for longer than a New York minute. Just ask anyone familiar with Cindy Sheehan and the anti-war protesters from Waco to Crawford.

The Bottom Line for the Arab World

Perhaps Ambassador Charles W. Freeman, Jr. (former ambassador to Saudi Arabia) sums it up best offering the following depressing yet very real Arab outlook on what will likely come from Annapolis:

"King Abdullah and his advisers have not fallen for renewed American hints that we might now actually be willing to do something to induce Israel to negotiate a settlement of differences with the Palestinians that most could accept and that therefore could be endorsed by all Arabs. Having seen the peace process become a means of evading rather than pursuing the exchange of land for peace, no Arab now sees any merit in anything but establishing a firm border and hammering out an actual deal between Israel and the Palestinians. Since the political conditions for closure of a deal do not exist on either the Israeli or the Palestinian side, the Annapolis meeting is shaping up as a huge year-end diplomatic embarrassment for the United States."