The US-brokered Annapolis peace conference was given a significant boost on Friday when heavyweight Saudi Arabia decided to send its foreign minister to the launch of the first peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians in seven years. Syria, Israel's most implacable Arab enemy, signaled that it was now also likely to attend.
Saudi Prince Saud al-Faisal said that he would be taking part in Tuesday's Maryland summit as part of an Arab "consensus" of support for the Palestinians -- despite near-universal gloom about the prospects of agreement on the toughest issues.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged fellow Arab leaders to come to Annapolis, arguing that there were prospects of negotiations with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on the creation of a Palestinian state within a year.
PHOTO: AP
"We have a historic opportunity," Abbas told reporters in Cairo. "We are hoping that we will be together at the conference discussing all tracks, the Palestinian-Israeli track, the Syrian-Israeli track and the Lebanese track."
Saudi Arabia, home to the Muslim holy sites of Mecca and Medina as well as a quarter of world oil reserves, is Washington's closest ally in the Arab world. Its presence guarantees wide, if skeptical, Arab support for US President George W. Bush's initiative.
Syria's position remains unclear. It has been holding out for a reference to the Golan Heights, still occupied by Israel 40 years after the 1967 war.
"The United States has sent confirmation that it will include the Syrian-Israeli track ... the Golan ... on the Annapolis agenda," the official Syrian news agency quoted the foreign minister, Walid Moualem, as saying. "Syria will decide whether to attend or not in light of the agenda it receives."
Diplomats said consultations would continue over the weekend to secure US agreement to the demand from Damascus.
"I think the Americans will include the reference Syria wants because they can't afford not to have us all there," one senior Arab official said.
Unlike Egypt and Jordan, Saudi Arabia has no diplomatic relations with Israel.
"We were reluctant until today," Faisal said. "If not for the Arab consensus, we would not have decided to go. We are not prepared to take part in a theatrical show, in handshakes and meetings that don't express political positions."
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have still not agreed a joint declaration for the conference but will continue talks in the US before the meeting.
Polls published yesterday showed most Israelis support Annapolis but few expect results. According to one poll, published by the Ma'ariv newspaper, up to 50 percent of the Israeli public think Olmert has no mandate to negotiate with the Palestinians because of his unpopularity over last year's war in Lebanon and the alleged corruption scandals that surround him.
As Olmert flies to the US tomorrow, Israeli police will reveal whether they will bring charges against him in connection with a banking scandal.
The Ma'ariv poll, which questioned 500 people, said 53 percent believed he was only going to Annapolis to improve his public standing, while 38 percent thought he wanted to make peace.
The same poll produced a mixed verdict on Abbas, with 48 percent saying they felt he wanted peace and 46 percent saying he did not. It found 56 percent of Israelis were in favor of evacuating some or all of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
A second poll found 69 percent supported the conference but only 22 percent expected it to succeed. The poll of 500 people, conducted by the Dahaf Polling Institute and published in the Yediot Aharonot newspaper, found only 40 percent in favor of evacuating most West Bank settlements.
Despite the general pessimism among Israelis and Palestinians, some still argue the conference is important.
Ha'aretz, a left-leaning newspaper, said in an editorial that there was no point being dismissive.
"Even the cynics acknowledge that the broad outlines of a two state solution are known, clear and acceptable to the majority in both nations. The question, therefore, remains: if not at Annapolis -- then where, and if not now -- then when?" it wrote.
DEATH CONSTANTLY LOOMING: Decades of detention took a major toll on Iwao Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers describing him as ‘living in a world of fantasy’ A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.44 million in compensation, an official said yesterday. The payout represents ￥12,500 (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others. The case sparked scrutiny of the justice system in
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a “fish doorbell” on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds. The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrecht’s Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a Web site. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through. Now in its fifth year, the
RSS