[NYTr] Annapolis: Willing to compromise, or just compromised?

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Ed Pearl

Toronto Globe & Mail - Nov 28, 2007

Mideast peace talks:

Willing to compromise, or just compromised?

"About 15,000 right-wing protesters marched through the centre of
Jerusalem on Monday, pausing at the Western Wall to pray that the
peace talks fail and the entire city remains united under Israeli
control."

"In the Gaza Strip, where Mr. Abbas has no control at all, the Islamist 
Hamas
movement brought more than 100,000 people into the streets to denounce
the Annapolis meeting and to challenge Mr. Abbas's right to negotiate."

Neither Abbas nor Olmert is strong enough politically to forge a deal
with any teeth, former negotiators suggest

By Mark MacKinnon

Jerusalem -- Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said yesterday that it
is time for him and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to forge a
"peace of the brave" between their two peoples. But any agreement they
reach would also be a peace of the weak, many say.

Despite the soaring rhetoric and grand promises both men indulged in
during the summit, former negotiators - both Israeli and Palestinian -
question whether either man is politically strong enough to carry a
reborn peace process through to its conclusion.

The joint agreement that Mr. Abbas and Mr. Olmert signed yesterday
contains almost nothing that hadn't been agreed to by their
predecessors at other peace conferences in years gone by. Observers
said it couldn't be otherwise, for fear the deal might jeopardize the
governments of one or both men.

"How can you get the Palestinians to make concessions to Israel when
they're in a position of total weakness, when Mahmoud Abbas can barely
control Ramallah?" asked Dore Gold, an adviser to the Israeli
delegation that went to the 1991 peace conference in Madrid.

"And Mr. Olmert has his own weaknesses," Mr. Gold continued. "His
coalition partners - Shas [a right-wing religious party] and
[ultranationalist leader Avigdor] Lieberman - have already made clear
they will not sit in a government that negotiates Jerusalem.

"And there are significant parts of Olmert's own ruling party, Kadima,
which strongly object to any concessions on Jerusalem."

In an early sign of just how debilitating that could be to the peace
process, all mention of the word Jerusalem - the city that Israelis and
Palestinians both claim as their capital and one of the thorny "core
issues" Mr. Abbas and Mr. Olmert repeatedly promised to address - was
struck from the joint understanding Mr. Bush read out. The
predominantly Arab eastern half of Jerusalem has been under Israeli
military control since it was captured along with the West Bank and
Gaza Strip in a 1967 war.

Though the Palestinian delegation wanted to have the city's future
explicitly put on the table, Mr. Olmert fought to keep it out, fearing
Shas and Mr. Lieberman would bring down his wobbly coalition government
if Jerusalem were formally put up for discussion. About 15,000
right-wing protesters marched through the centre of Jerusalem on
Monday, pausing at the Western Wall to pray that the peace talks fail
and the entire city remains united under Israeli control.

While such dissent is on open display in Israel, Mr. Abbas banned all
demonstrations in the West Bank yesterday, leading to clashes between
police and activists in several cities that left at least one
demonstrator dead.

In the Gaza Strip, where Mr. Abbas has no control at all, the Islamist
Hamas movement brought more than 100,000 people into the streets to
denounce the Annapolis meeting and to challenge Mr. Abbas's right to
begin negotiations. The Islamist movement trounced Mr. Abbas's Fatah
party in legislative elections a year ago, and says it represents the
majority of Palestinians when it rejects talks with Israel.

"Mr. Abbas has no mandate to discuss, to agree, or to erase any word
related to our rights," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said.

Mustafa Barghouti, a former Palestinian cabinet minister who was also a
delegate at the 1991 Madrid talks, said Hamas was essentially correct
when it said Mr. Abbas has no right to negotiate on behalf of
Palestinians.

He said the heavy-handed crackdown on the relatively small protests in
the West Bank showed how weak Mr. Abbas is now.

"He can represent part of the Palestinians, but definitely not all of
them," Mr. Barghouti said. "At the end of the day, only new democratic
elections can determine who represents us."

On the ground, there were few signs that peace was near. At least seven
Palestinians have been killed in clashes with the Israeli military in
the Gaza Strip since the summit began Monday. All the dead were
believed to be Hamas members.

Israel's army and air force carry out regular strikes inside
Hamas-controlled Gaza, usually in response to rocket fire directed at
nearby Israeli cities. Four homemade Qassam rockets were fired from
Gaza into Israel yesterday, doing little physical damage.