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Mid-East Meeting: Talk-fest or Photo-op?

Phyllis Bennis, writing on ZNet, raises some pertinent question about the possible upcoming Middle East meeting in the US in the next week or so:

"** 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."

And:

"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."

Read the full piece here.

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