Annapolis and the Middle East

For a Pro-Active Response for Peace and Justice

Statement of the National Executive Committee, CCDS - December 20, 2007

The Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, launched at Annapolis, MD and brokered by the Bush Administration, constitute many problems and an admittedly shaky opportunity. Despite the tenuousness of the opportunity, the cause of peace and justice in the Middle East commands a pro-active approach by those seeking a just settlement. Rising demands by a broad spectrum of the public for fair, substantive and serious efforts to achieve peace are mandatory if there is to be any chance for success.

Critics of the Annapolis process have strong reasons to be dubious. It was clear from the start that Washington’s primary purpose in launching the talks was not a just and viable solution to the conflict, but to foment an anti-Iranian front of Arab states, holding out the prospect of a Palestinian state in exchange for Arab acquiescence to Washington’s threats against Iran. On November 23, 2007 the Israeli newspaper Haaretz wrote: “Behind closed doors, President George W. Bush has hinted that Israeli-Palestinian progress will make it easier for him to rally a determined international front against Iran.” Referring to the impending Annapolis meeting, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the assembly of the United Jewish Community November 13: “So, ladies and gentlemen, what is at stake is nothing less than the future of the Middle East. Violent extremists with the government of Iran in the lead are doing everything in their power to impose … their hate filled ideologies on the people of the Middle East. … This makes the two-state solution more urgent than ever.”

The Israeli commitment to constructive negotiations is brought sharply into question when on the eve of the post-Annapolis negotiations the Israeli army launched a bloody incursion into Gaza killing six Palestinians – provoking a new round of counterproductive Palestinian rocket attacks. The siege of Gaza continues. According to a coalition of Israeli organizations, “…Israel has increasingly restricted passage of people and goods to and from the Gaza Strip, leading to severe hardship and a drastic curtailing of the basic sources of sustenance and health of the population…causing shortages in water, fuel, medications, essential equipment, raw materials and thousands of other essential commodities. In November alone, 13 patients died after Israeli authorities denied them access to medical care that is unavailable in Gaza.” At this moment when negotiations have begun, Israeli authorities are preparing to make large cuts in Gaza’s energy sources, exacerbating a deepening humanitarian crisis.

On December 4, shortly after Annapolis, the Israeli government issued a tender for the construction of 307 apartments in the Har Homa neighborhood near Jerusalem, signaling – in the face of coming negotiations – its intent to resist the dismantling of settlements while creating new “facts on the ground.” Washington’s response was a tepid expression of unhappiness. On the eve of the conference Israel again engaged in its timeworn practice of throwing up new obstacles, this time, under pressure from the extreme Israeli right wing, a demand by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a “Jewish state,” thereby scuttling the remaining rights of over one million Israeli Palestinians.

The Bush administration’s fidelity to the Israeli government’s “facts on the ground” has been a long-standing hallmark of Washington’s Middle East policies. In April 2004, George W. Bush wrote then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that “in light of new realities on the ground,” including “existing major Israeli population centers [i.e. settlements, etc.], it is unreasonable to expect” that final negotiations would result in a return to pre-1967 borders. Such unrelenting support for Israel’s unilateral expansion collapsed the already fragile Oslo accords. That support underscored the other side of the political coin: Israel’s willing role as strategic outpost for US interests in the Middle East.

With that history, the notion of Washington’s self-designated role of sole “moderator” of the Annapolis negotiations provokes skepticism, if not cynicism. How then can those concerned with a just peace for all view Annapolis as an opportunity?

First, there have been important strategic changes in the region. The long-term cultivation by Washington of conservative Arab states has resulted, among other things, in US bases in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Yemen and other countries along with new bases emerging from the occupation of Iraq. This mosaic of lethal forces has reduced Washington’s strategic reliance upon Israel. Also, the evisceration in recent years of progressive secular movements in the region by US and Israeli pressure has ironically weakened Washington’s dependence on Israel. Attempting to walk a fine line between its deeply bound alliance with Israel and its cultivated ties with Arab states, the Bush administration must confront the growing restiveness of its Arab friends who need a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for their own internal stability. While those largely Sunni states are worried about Shiite Iran, they have thus far resisted Washington’s efforts to draw them into an anti-Iran front.

At Annapolis the invited Arab states underscored the urgency of a just and lasting peace, pointing to the historic offer of the Arab League to forge joint recognition of Israel in exchange for a peaceful settlement of the conflict with the Palestinians. The Palestinian People’s Party stressed the importance of the participation of Arab states at Annapolis. It called upon those states and the international community “to achieve an effective role” to assure that the Annapolis process goes far beyond photo opportunities to forge a substantive agreement to end the occupation of Palestine and lay the foundation for a just and lasting peace.

Second, world public opinion, reflected in UN votes and resolutions, overwhelmingly supports the creation of a viable Palestinian state, established principally through an end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and a return to pre-1967 borders. Such public opinion is reflected and reinforced by a recent poll released by the American Jewish Committee that revealed large majorities among Jews in the US reject the neo-conservative hard line support of the Iraq war and threats against Iran while a plurality (46% to 43%), despite ferocious efforts of neo-cons, favor a Palestinian state. That opinion, if effectively mobilized and focused on a concrete and realistic peace program, can transform the Annapolis process, despite US motives and Israeli obstruction. Mark Rosenbaum, founder of Americans for Peace Now, said: “Bush can’t be allowed to sell this as political spin.” The US “silent majority” needs to be mobilized to tell Congress and the State Department: “we support a peace process that is real, not imaginary,” he added. Churches for Middle East Peace, supports that view: “The apt question is not whether Annapolis will fail, but what must be done to make sure it leads to success.” Jewish Voice for Peace calls for a substantive diplomatic process to end Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands. Those views are echoed by a broad spectrum of religious and secular opinion around the world.

In October, a bipartisan group of leading establishment figures led by Zbigniew Brzezinski, Lee Hamilton and Brent Scowcroft called upon Bush and Rice to take “bold steps” for a two-state solution, saying the projected conference “should set in motion credible and sustained permanent status negotiations under international supervision with a timetable for their completion.”

While demands upon US policymakers to become constructively engaged in peacemaking are essential, the call for international supervision of the process with full engagement by major players (the European Union, Russia, China, all the Middle East states including Iran and Syria, etc.) is also essential to assure the integrity of the process and the political muscle to guarantee a settlement that is just to all parties.

CCDS strongly supports all efforts to transform a tenuous Annapolis process into a diplomatic groundswell for peace. It calls upon the US and the international community to take concrete steps to create a positive environment for successful negotiations:

CCDS acknowledges the enormously difficult task of achieving peace and justice in the Middle East. But it is not hyperbole to assert that the peace of the entire world may be at stake in a region consumed by oppression, war and a volatile imperial scramble for oil and strategic gain. But the very stakes in resolving the crisis and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at its heart, command an effective mobilization for peace and justice.


The window of opportunity, however slim, is open. Let us seize the opportunity – for the present and for future generations.

Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism
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