8/14/2019 An AJC Guide to the Upcoming Anapolis Peace
Conference
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The Annapolis Meeting: Background and Expectations
The Annapolis Meeting: Background and Expectations
By Eran Lerman
Director, Israel/Middle East Office
American Jewish Committee
JERUSALEM, November 25, 2007The meeting to be convened by the
United States inAnnapolis, Maryland, on November 27 to advance
Israeli-Palestinian peace will bring togetherPresident Bush,
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas, anda growing list of senior Arab dignitaries.
Although characterized as a meeting rather than a peace
conference or summit, in an effort tomanage expectations, the event
represents a significant step by the United States and by
theelected Israeli and Palestinian leadership. Against formidable
obstacles, progress can be made.
But by design and by necessity, Annapolis will not be Camp
David. This will be an event in whichpositions are set forth, and
gestures will be made or hinted to, and made by, the
internationalcommunity and a number of Arab states. It will not be
an event in which the principal playersburrow into forced seclusion
in the woods to resolve the key issues in contention. Those
difficultdiscussions will come later.
Unlike Camp David One, in the summer of 1978 (Menahem Begin;
Anwar Sadat; Jimmy Carter),it is unrealistic to expect that
Annapolis will yield a major breakthrough leading to a
peaceagreement in several months made possible by equally
breathtaking Israel concessions. The
apocalyptic imagery of a massive sell-out, emanating from
spokesmen on the far Right, is drivenby largely baseless fears.
Annapolis will launch a long and complex process, which is unlikely
toproduce a Permanent Status Agreement within the time left for the
Bush Administration.
At the same time, unlike Camp David Two, in the summer of 2000
(Ehud Barak; Yasir Arafat; BillClinton), this is equally unlikely
to end with a loud bang of slammed doors, as mournful voices onthe
far Left have warned. It is unlikely that Abbas and his Prime
Minister, Salam Fayyad, aneconomist focused on the well-being of
his people, are going to Annapolis to stage a dramaticfailure in
which they will blame Israel and America, igniting Arafat-style
violence (which after all,proved to be disastrously futile) and
calling on the World to intervene.
What does Annapolis signify, then? In essence, four departures
for better or worse from therealities of recent years:
A direct leap to the Permanent Status negotiations, thus in
effect canceling a key feature ofthe Road Map, namely Stage Two,
which envisioned a Palestinian State with ProvisionalBorders. This
was a prospect nominally accepted but rejected in practice by the
Palestinian side.It greatly frightened Abbas, who had reason to
suspect the permanence of all Middle Easternprovisional measures.
The willingness, originally suggested by Foreign Minister Livni
andeagerly adopted by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to forgo
the Road map sequence ofnegotiations by stages (but insist on it
later, when we come to implementation) was in itself amajor Israeli
concession; Abbas earned it by right of his forthright stand
against Hamas, andagainst the violent aspects (if not the national
goals) of Arafats legacy.
