Transcript of the Gush Shalom Forum Annapolis discussion held on Nov. 21 at the Kibbutz Movement House, Tel Aviv, with the participation of Gideon Levy, Moria Shlomot, Uri Avnery, Gadi Elgazi and Netta Golan and with the moderation of Teddy Katz.
Teddy Katz: Thanks to all the people who came on such a rainy night. Before I let the speakers take the floor, I would like to put some brief questions which the speakers might refer to.
Is Annapolis purely a George Bush event, which everybody else comes merely to provide a background, in face of Bush’s present and future fiascos in Iraq and Iran?
There is no talking about the core issues, nor a timetable for the next stages after the conference, and it is not sure who would come and for what purpose, other than to be photographed. Is the aim of getting photographed worthy of making of so much fuss?
There is so much disastrous between the Israeli and Palestinian bridegrooms and brides, that even small differences would loom large. And if the worst happens and there will be no agreement achieved, what then? We already have bitter experiences of earlier occasions.
Gideon Levy (Ha’aretz): Yes, Annapolis does have an importance.Theimportance is that Annapolis exposes, and will further expose, thingswhich we have swept under the carpet, truths which we know but havecovered with carpets of lies. It is in fact very simple: Israel doesnot want peace. There is no other way to describe what is going on.
For decades already, the State of Israel faces a clear choicebetween peace and occupation and prefers the occupation.
In the case of Annapolis there are two very clear pieces of evidence:first, the refusal to negotiate on the “core subjects”, another farcetaking place right in front of us. The media gives credibility to theidea that you can go to peace talks without discussing peace. TheGovernment of Israel says it explicitly: they don’t want to talkabout peace, only about marginal issues. There is an importance toAnnapolis, because it lays bare clearly the fact that the state ofIsrael does not want peace.
The other proof: forty years of settlement. Olmert declared a”Settlement Freeze” – but why should anyone take it seriously? Thesettlers met with Olmert and afterwards announced that it was “A verydifficult meeting” – a cynical ritual which is good for them and goodfor Olmert, nothing more than that.
Three agreements to which we have obliged ourselves as a state, aformal obligation of a state by its heads, included a settlementfreeze.
In Oslo we have taken the obligation not to effect a change in thesituation on the ground until the definite solution – and in the tenyears after Oslo, the number of settlers was doubled. These were thefirst harbingers of peace.
Then, Barak as Prime Minister vowed to “turn every stone” on the wayto peace. On his way to Camp David 6445 housing units were built forsettlers, during a term of one and half year altogether. If theyreally wanted peace, would they have have added even one balcony inone settlement?
Afterwards, one more great year of peace, the year of Sharon’s”Disengagement” from Gaza, the year in which most Israelis are stillsure that Israel has done a giant step and evacuated with enormousfuss the Gaza Strip settlements. And nobody noticed that in preciselythe same year there were added 12,000 settlers, by several thousandsmore than the number evacuated from Gaza.
And now, we go to Annapolis. At the same time that the plane takesoff for the US, cranes are standing and intensive construction workgoes on at eighty-eight settlements.
The Defence Minster says that this construction cannot and should notbe stopped. The heart of Defence Minister Barak is with theinhabitants of the illegal settlement outposts. “The Illegalsettlement outposts” – as if the other settlements are legal!
Forty percent of the “legal” settlements were built on private landwithout the consent of the owners – a criminal acts by all criteria,a crime committed by a state.
Continued settlements and the refusal to talk of core issues expose asituation which causes a loss of hope. Very simple, unwillingness tomake peace and very creative talent for the invention of excuses.
The first excuse which the government of Israel had was the demandthat there would be a direct – and only direct – negotiations. Butdirect negotiations, not with the PLO, because the PLO were at thattime terrorists. Afterwards, yes with the PLO but not with Arafat. Wewere told that the moment Arafat disappears, on the same day we willhave peace. Arafat was the stumbling block because he was too strong,a dictator. Afterwards Abu Mazen is the stumbling block because he istoo weak. And with Hamas, of course not.
And after all that, are there people who really believe that Israelwants peace, an Israeli who sincerely believe that his country wantspeace and all the blame is on the other side? I hope Annapolis willhelp expose the truth.
I have greater respect for those who say openly that they don’t wantpeace, and that’s that. I prefer that to the disgusting masquerade,as if since the creation of the state until now we are the peace-seekers and the Palestinians are the war-mongers.
It is twenty years that I am constantly going around in theTerritories. I rarely meet there with politicians. Since Arafat isgone, I don’t do it at all. There are enough others who do that. I amgoing from house to house, at least one family every week. Not that Iam conducting a scientific anthropological research, but I can claimto have some acquaintance with the Palestinian grassroots. And I cansay that the Palestinian people really want peace.
Among Palestinians, the real longing is for living together, whileamong Israelis the desire is for separation – let them separate,disappear, vanish, let us see nothing of them any more behind thehigh wall. Among the Palestinians, and precisely among the familiesof the most terrible victims, there is the wish to live together. Thebest years, which they remember with longing, are “when we livedtogether, visited the homes of Israelis, participated in parties”.
Sometimes I find it difficult to understand where this comes from. Iwas in the home of a family in Sa’da Village when the son Luay wasreleased from imprisonment, with one leg paralysed from Shabaktorture. A very fascinating young man, optimistic, speaking in Hebrewof the wish to live together despite everything. I saw on the wall anoil painting of prisoner holding his head in his hands, the young sonMunhammd who was still imprisoned at the time of the visit.
This was three months ago. I came back there this week because theson Muhammd was killed, shot in the head in the Ktziot Prison riots.Another event which was hardly given any publicity, 550 prison guardsbrutally raiding the prisoners’ tents. And the son Muhammad was shotin the head and killed. And I come to the house of the family a fewdays later, they mourn him and they still want to live together withIsraelis. If a Palestinian journalist would have come to the home ofa family bereaved in terrorist attack, what would he have heard?
So, we go to Annapolis. Needless to say, in the situation which Itried to describe, my expectations are at most to prevent anotherterrible disaster and even more bloodshed.
I think that we have to come out of this meeting with a greaterrealization and understanding of the fact that we live in a countrywhich does not want peace.
Moria Shlomot (Peace Now): I have to admit that Gideon has confusedme a bit and forced me to change what I intended to say. I would liketo refer to what you said and ask myself if I share this assumption,that Israel does not want peace – this very pessimistic position.
I have a strong feeling that very many Israelis do want peace, evenif the leadership and government do not, and that in many Israelihomes you would hear the wish to live in peace and not to “separate”.
When Adam [Keller] asked me a few weeks ago to speak in this event Iasked him what was the general idea, and he said there were threebasic positions: those who oppose Annapolis, the sceptics, and thosewho have some of hope of this conference – and the last are thosewhich I am supposed to represent here.
At that time, Peace Now launched a campaign, jointly with the GenevaInitiative, with posters showing a bullet and pen facing each other,and a call upon Olmert to choose for peace. Now, with the conferencejust ahead of us, the situation seems very different.
My first worry was when they started to talk of “The Road Map”, whichis not relevant and its timetable is long past. Nowadays, “The RoadMap” is a code word for those who want to sabotage any advance. Everystep in the Road Map is dependant on the previous step, and since noone fulfils their assigned part there is just no advance whatsoever.
Then came the issue of “recognizing a Jewish state”, of whichLieberamn wants to make a precondition for negotiations. A Jewishstate is a core issue. In the same time and place where Jerusalem,the borders, the refugees and the settlements will be discussed, thatis the right forum for discussing also the issue of a Jewish nationstate – that is the time and place, not as a precondition.
The problem is more fundamental than George W. Bush and Annapolis.The American nation as a whole did not yet decide what are itsinterests in this region – to solve the Israeli-Palestinian Conflictor to aggravate the situation. And as long as the American nation didnot decide, they will not impose a solution on us, as people on theLeft here used to think and hope.
Six days before the conference, like before Camp David, there is aworry about negative dynamics. When the risks are so bad, is itworthwhile to go there? We have a justified distrust of Olmert, and Ihave to say – even more of Barak. Perhaps it is naןve, but with meOlmert is gaining some points. Barak is perpetrating a disaster andhis conduct is a political crime.
With all these weighty doubts which I expressed, I share thedecisions of Peace Now. At present I hold no position in the movement[she is a former Secretary-General] but I participate in some of themeetings, including the meeting where the Pen and Bullet Campaign wasdecided upon.
As an extra-parliamentary movement, Peace Now is concerned withtrying to influence the atmosphere on the streets. Peace Now has theobligation to tell Olmert: you have a mandate to go as far aspossible. If we don’t say it, nobody will – and it it important thatit would be said. This is a public responsibility, both short- andlong-range.
Does Israel really not want peace? One reason to feel a bitoptimistic is exactly the reasons why Sharon put the “DisengagementPlan” on the table precisely at the moment when the corruptioninvestigations against him became intensive.
Yossi Sarid of Meretz and Tzvi Hendel from the extreme right bothclaim credit for the saying “Sharon’s withdrawal is as deep as theinvestigation against him”. What this means is that when an Israelipolitical leader feels that his political survival is in danger, hegoes in the direction of ending the occupation and dismantling thesettlements. He thinks that this is what give him popularity and animmunity from media hostility. So, this means that these are thethings which public opinion demands from its leaders!
One last thing: who is against Annapolis? Iran, Lieberman, and morethan everybody else – the military complex in Israel. And if themilitary complex is against, I want to be in favour!
Gadi Elgazi (Hithabrut-Tarabut): To those who asked, Tarabut is aproject in the process of being created, an organization which -unlike other organizations in which I was and am involved – is tryingto formulate political positions, among other things against theAnnapolis Conference.
The singer Muki once sung about “Everybody speaks of peace, nobodyspeaks of justice”. We are trying to speak of justice, of how muchjustice is needed in order to achieve peace.
The most substantial thing is that there is no symmetry between thesides. Every diplomatic game is based on fictions, like the UNGeneral Assembly where every state has a single vote, a superpowerand the smallest and weakest of states. From afar a fiction isproduced of two parallel sides, Israelis and Palestinians, who aretold to sit down and talk.
Israel is capable of causing the Palestinian an unimaginable anguish.Even if we put aside the balance of bloodshed, this is a colonialconflict in which one side can change the basic conditions underwhich the other side lives: land, water, work, family. Not just thephysical force of tear gas, bullets and shells, but changing thebasic conditions of life. An enormously powerful state facing adisintegrated people.
Therefore, I oppose the symmetry of depicting two pens which shouldmeet somewhere in the middle. One side can bend the hand of the otherand say “now come and make peace”. Under conditions where one sidecan impose colonization, with its own forces and the forces whichsupport it, there is no way ensuring the long-term future of bothpeoples.
When thinking about the future, you should look beyond the shortrange of ten to fifteen years where Israel has an assured militarysuperiority with its settlement project, but to a range of fifty toseventy years where it could no longer rely on the status of aregional power with nuclear bombs in the basement.
And moreover, the view should be widened beyond looking at Israelisand Palestinians, look at the entire region and contemplate what isthe future of an isolated fortress in the Middle East. To understandthat there is no future to an outpost linked to outside forces, thereis a future only to a country integrated in a democratic Middle East.
We should find the way to mediate between the situation that in thelong range the occupier and settler has no future, and the presentsituation of military superiority. It is not possible to turn backthe clock sixty years, but a certain degree of justice is vital inorder to counterbalance Israel’s enormous power. To look beyond theIsraeli superiority in the next five, ten or fifteen years to afuture where integration in the region is the only solution.
The Palestinian people are after an Intifada which has cost anenormous amount of blood and ended with a disaster. Its mainachievement is the creation of forms of non-violent struggle, butexcept for that the Palestinian people is disintegrated and dividedbetween Hamas and Fatah. Nobody can now lead, they can now only playwith a pen like the Indians who signed agreements – interimagreements which only increased the power of the white settlers ofNorth America. Such agreements bring war upon us, agreements ofbloodshed – as the right-wing says. And we must say the truth,because it is the truth of what is behind Annapolis.
This is not a situation from which the Palestinians go to even thesmallest measure of justice, but to further crushing, a furtherexacerbation of the internal Palestinian division. The “experts” say:Let’s give Abu Mazen a some more freed prisoners, some more arms, afew more CIA advisers, and everything will be all right. The”moderates” will fight the “extremists”. This is part of the processof crushing the Palestinian leadership, the weak Abu Mazen instead ofthe terrible Arafat. Weakening him and than saying he is too weak andcannot fulfil his promises.
Going to Annapolis forces Abu Mazen to ignore a million hungryGazans, and makes the fissure in the Palestinian leadershipunhealable. This is not a true Israel interest. As Israelis we have aan interest in having a united Palestinian leadership, includingHamas.
The present situation will lead to one of two results. Either AbuMazen would not fulfil the promises he will be forced to make, andthen they will say “We told you so, he cannot be relied upon”. Or hewill try to fulfil these promises, and then there will be a lot ofbloodshed and a further disintegration of the Palestinians.
Who does have an interest in going to Annapolis? Condoleeza Rice has.You should look at this form the perspective of the entire MiddleEast, of the training and preparations going on already for monthstowards war with Iran, the breaking of European opposition to thatwar. The Annapolis party is aimed at including Egypt and Saudi Arabiain this war.
We, too, will pay the price for this coming war. We will pay simplybecause we have decided to live here, to link our fate with thisregion. In the American war in Iran and Afganistan, we are a forwardoutpost which can get a lot of the fire intended for the US.
Nowadays, even people who are not exactly radicals realize that thereis such a thing as Imperialism, and that there are empires – atleast, there is one empire, and there is another empire arising(which some people still consider to be Socialist).
I wanted to tell Moria that peace and left-wing people definitelytake a risk in supporting Annapolis. The risk is that this processwill end in disappointment, and then people will fall into the right-wing’s arms. When you take from people the hope for peace they couldbecome beasts.
About “A Jewish State” – a Jewish state means, among other things,the demolition of [Arab] homes in the Negev and Wadi Ara. Also in theinternal Israeli arena this has grave consequences.The alternative to Annapolis is calling for ending the siege of Gaza.
Neta Golan (International Solidarity Movement): The moderator [TeddyKatz] presented me as a replacement for a Palestinian participant whocould not be brought to Tel-Aviv. I was already introduced in worseways. Once, when I was interviewed in Ya’ir Lapid’s TV talk show,concerning my presence in the Mukata’a [Ramallah PresidentialCompound] during the siege on Arafat in April-May 2002, he introducedme as someone whose acts arouse disgust. This is certainly worse thanbeing a “Surrogate Palestinian”.
The fact that I live in Ramallah and raise these my daughters doesnot mean that I can speak for the Palestinians. But it is true that Ihave much in common with the people who live in Ramallah, and I canpresent a view from the angle of living on the ground. If by chancesomebody who does not live on the ground and does not see thingsfirst hand will claim he did not understand where things are going,than at least I can provide a personal testimony.
To understand what happens is not possible from Annapolis, but onthe ground you can see buildings and roads being built and paved, andsee exactly the direction things are taking.
So, for your information – on the ground, Apartheid is being built.Since the early years of the Intifada, a system of roads for Jewsonly is being created. Now, this is being completed with roads forPalestinians which put them in the places which the system definesfor them. The borders of the cantons are defined – “cantons” isSharon’s word, the right and precise word is ghettos.
Near Ramallah, where I live, there are two ghettos which are alreadyfinished and completed. Let me present the Bir Naballah Ghetto: aghetto surrounded by walls on all sides. One side is what is calledofficially “The Separation Wall”. On the other three sides it isofficially called “Roadside Fences”, beautiful fences which aresupposedly intended to prevent noises. That is the official version.On the ground, the meaning is that these walls surround Bir Naballahon all sides, there is only one exist – through a tunnel under theroad which is for Jews only. Of course, this tunnel is also under thecontrol of the army, which can close and block it at discretion.
The Palestinian Authority wanted to connect Bir Naballah to thePalestinian water system. The Israeli authorities did not allow this,it insisted upon linking Bir Naballah to the Israeli water system. Ofcourse, the one who has the hand on the tap can also close it atwill. And close by the Bir Nabllah Ghetto there is the Bidu Ghetto,which is more or less the same, I will no go into details.
The point is that even if all the Annapolis dreams come true, thisghetto will remain. Because what defined and divides it to the northis Route 443, the road against which we [the ISM] have recentlylaunched a campaign. This road will be annexed to Israel, because itgoes through Giv’at Ze’ev, which is to be annexed to Israel andrecognized as “a Jerusalem neighbourhood”. This is what they call”settlement blocks” which were built in such a way that once they areannexed to Israel they make the whole of the West Bank into a clusterof ghettos.
There is a movement of ideological settlers. They, I think, will beeventually evacuated. Even from Hebron the settlers will be evacuated- here, I am very optimistic, I think that the settlers will beevacuated from Hebron! But this does not make a difference. There arethe other settlements, the strategic settlements which are sponsoreddirectly by the state. People don’t go there for ideological reasons.Even people who are considered to the left of people who live insideJerusalem. In the settlements of Ma’aleh Adumim and Nili there areMeretz supporters.
Settlement Blocks mean that the Palestinians live in ghettos, ofwhich passage from one to the other is under Israeli control, and itcan be suffocatingly closed as they is already done in Gaza, ifArafat or Abu Mazen or whoever does not fulfil his role. This is away to crush all resistance.
What is not taken into account is that the peace agreement wasalready signed, only that it was signed between Sharon and Bush. In2004 there were negotiations and an agreement was signed, saying thatthe Israelis will keep the settlement blocks and the refugees willreturn only to their state. Bush agreed to that when Sharon set outto him the “Disagreement Plan” – “You disengage from Gaza, I approveyour settlement blocks”. And this was signed and approved byCongress.
Annapolis is, among other things, aimed at torpedoing the SaudiInitiative. The Saudi Initiative stated that there will be first anagreement about the end of the occupation and only then there will benormalization. The Americans demand that first the Saudis and otherArabs should come and meet with Olmert and thus implementnormalization, and only later – if at all – there will be anagreement.
I would like to tell the people in this room, you deserve greatcredit for having introduced the concept of Two States into theconsensus. Such a great success that Bush and Olmert and Sharonunderstood that you can’t beat it and therefore decided to join it,and thereby changed the entire meaning. Nowadays, if you say -TwoStates- without saying a complete control of water and land and afree access to Jerusalem without walls, than you support Apartheid.
There are those who say that they support peace and in fact theysupport Apartheid. This is the whitewashing of the occupation,controlling the ground and the borders and “getting rid” of as manyPalestinians as possible. That is what was done in Oslo. ThePalestinians then had great hopes of Oslo and did not realize thatthis was what was done in practice – a plan to absolve Israel ofresponsibility for the Palestinians and keep control in practice.
I remember that I did not come out against the Disengagement Plan,because the right wing was against it, and who wants to standtogether with the Right? And so it happens that I, too, share in theresponsibility for the hunger of the people in Gaza. Everybody whosupported the Disengagement shares in the responsibility for thehunger of the people in Gaza.
The second thing is that the Convergence Plan of which Olmert talkedat the beginning of his term did not disappear and is not forgotten.And this plan talks clearly of going out of part of the territory,but not from the Settlement Blocks – as I said, this means Apartheid.Dov Weisglass, Sharon’s confidential adviser, that even if in tenyears somebody comes to Israel with a demand to evacuate theSettlement Blocks, it would be possible to produce the Bush Letterand say that the Master of the World has already given his stamp ofapproval.
In the beginning, Olmert wanted to do it completely unilaterally. TheAmericans and Blair came and told him that Convergence should not becarried out his way, but “you should be able to say that you tried”.And indeed, Olmert said that “we will try”, but if the Palestiniansdon’t agree, he will implement it anyway – unilaterally.
Inside the “Road Map” there is the option of “A Palestinian State inTemporary Borders” and that is what the Palestinians are afraid of,of being left stuck in a “temporary” situation in a situation wherethey have no real control over their lives. And this is exactly whatis being talked about on the israeli side as “a safety net”, which ifnegotiations fail a temporary state will be created. “Temporary”,like everything to with the occupation.
So, if you understood what I talked about here, I expect to see youin the demonstration on Route 443 next Friday.
Uri Avnery (Gush Shalom): Somehow in the course of this debate thefocus moved to the question whether the state of Israel wants peace.This is quite a complicated issue, and there are different views alsoamong people who agree about other issues.
This problem is derived from a more fundamental issue, which is thatwe are involved in a special kind of conflict which has no parallelelsewhere in the world or in history, and that is why I don’t agreewith the historical analogies. For example, Gadi thinks this is acolonial conflict. I wish this were true, than the solution wouldhave been far simpler.
A colonial conflict ends with a War of Independence, in which theoppressed people pays a heavy price but in the end the colonialmaster departs – certainly ceases to maintain direct control, eventhough there is sometimes a continued economic domination and neo-colonialism. But the settlers go out and away, like in Algeria andKenya.Or Apartheid – I wish it were Apartheid. In South Africa there wasstruggle, true and long and difficult one, but it ended with theoppressed taking power. I agree that we have here elements ofApartheid, but it is not fitting as an overall description.
I choose to define this conflict as the collision between anunstoppable force and an immoveable mass. The Zionist movement, withthe enormous force it accumulated, attacks and continues to attackthe Palestinian people – and the Palestinian people is still there.
The first part of this equation is clear. The Zionist movementbecomes stronger, the disparity in strength becomes greater andgreater. But the other part is not sufficiently appreciated. ThePalestinian people hold on. This enormous force is deployed againstthem, and after 120 years they are still there. The Palestiniansteadfast attachment to the land and the soil deserves admiration.
Despite all that happened, the internal divisions verging on civilwar, the Palestinian people hold on. Every time I come to theTerritories I am filled with admiration for the villagers who hold onunder these conditions. And now the brutal siege of Gaza, and alsothere the people hold on. If there was in Israel some hope that thepressure will break them and they will disappear, this did not andwill not happen. Some weak people and some rich people who live inluxury moved aside, but the people remain. On the background of thisperspective what happens these days is nearly unimportant, the bannerheadlines lose much of their impact.
The Zionist movement has a kind of genetic code, a kind of railswhich were laid down when the movement was founded and on which thetrain still moves. The basic position is that we want the country toourselves. The borders had never been defined precisely. In thedocument presented by the Zionist movement to the 1919 peaceconference after the First World War it claimed the territory untilthe Litany River in the north, until El-Arish in the south, andincluding the eastern side of the Jordan River.
This is the hidden code which continues to motivate people who thinkthat they have no ideology – and in fact, their ideology is take upthis territory, but without a non-Jewish population. What is nowcalled ethnic cleansing is in the genetic code of Zionism.
The settlement movement is completely compatible with this geneticcode. There was no need to adopt a cabinet resolution in order tostart settling. This is inherent in the nature of the Zionistmovement. The fact that the settlement outposts are called “illegal”because all the settlements are manifestly illegal underInternational Law.
Every day you can read in all the papers – including the liberalenlightened paper which I read – a debate about whether or not toevacuate the “illegal settlement outposts”, and the disputants saythat this is what Israel is obliged to do according to the Road Map.But in this document the term “illegal settlement outposts” does notappear at all. What is written there is that Israel must evacuate allsettlements created since Ariel Sharon came to power in January 2001.The question if according to inner Israeli definitions this is”legal” or “illegal” is completely irrelevant. But the journalistsjust parrot the terminology they hear from the politicians. Whichjournalist bothers to read agreements, look at the original document?Very few of them.
Anyway, the most illegal of outposts can arise, and it would beimmediately connected to water and electricity (not to mention thearmy stationing troops to defend them). Every government official andarmy officer knows instinctively that this is his job. Our job ismost difficult – to change the basic perception of Zionism and itsmanifestation, the State of Israel.
I agree with Gadi about integration in the region. With a lack ofmodesty I will note that already sixty years ago I said that we haveto be part of the region, which I call the Semitic Region – I usedthis term because it has the same meaning in Hebrew and Arabic.
Unlike the basic perception of Zionism, we are not the advance guardof Europe. If we regard ourselves this way we will never get topeace. If we see ourselves as part of the region, everything changes -like in a kaleidoscope, when you turn it around you get a completelydifferent picture, though it is composed of the same elements, butarranged differently according to a different logic. If we understandthat we are part of this region and that this is our future, than wewill be on the way to peace.
About Annapolis, I can’t feel very strongly either in favour oragainst. I think that after a month nobody will remember this event,like nobody remembers Shepherdestown or Wye Plantation. Only peoplewith a morbid memory remember these places and what kind of meetingstook place in them.
Annapolis is in fact not an Israeli-Palestinian meeting at all. It anan event of George Bush, for George Bush and by George Bush, andeverybody who comes there knows it. It is not completely clear whatis Bush’s purpose. I agree with Gadi that this might be a cover forpreparation for the war with Iran. I am very much afraid that thereis really going to be a war with Iran, that the preparations mightalready be complete. One of the scenarios is that Israel will attackIran, Iran will respond by bombing Israel, and than the US will cometo Israel’s help.
It is also possible that the purpose of Annapolis is more modest,simply to distract attention from the Iraq fiasco. Or simply to fillwith content the last year of this ridiculous man. The main thing isit will be photographed, the success being defined by the number ofphotographers.
The Egyptians go there because Congress under the influence of ofIsrael’s emissaries threatens to cut the two billions per year onwhich the Mubarak Regime is based. The Jordanians, for similarreasons. Syria, in order to safeguard itself against an Americanattack. Abu Mazen, in order to get help against Hamas, which is atthe moment the only thing interesting hi,. And Olmert simply wants togain time and remain Prime Minister for another month or year. Thereal war continues to take place on the ground, regardless of whathappens there.
I hate the new terminology which are introduced in the media, like”Core Issues”. What is hidden behind this term – rather, behind therefusal to talk about them – is simply the refusal to make peace.Those who don’t want the real and concrete peace, which is on thetable long before Annapolis, calls it by all kinds of names, anddelays it in order to gain another half a year or a year for a bitmore of building settlements and taking over lands.
Teddy Katz: With the end of this round of speakers, I open the floorto questions and remarks from the audience.
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