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Arabs doubt the power of Annapolis conference |
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Written by Staff Writer
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Nov 28, 2007 at 09:53 AM |
Arab commentators Wednesday drew aside the revival of the talks Israelo-Palestinians as a U.S. media stunt -staged and noy very likely to carry out peace.
Some alleged that the goal of President George W. Bush in assembling the conference of Tuesday in Annapolis, Maryland, was to save its image after failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, or to persuade of the Arab states their mortal enemy was Iran, not Israel. "the failure of Annapolis is now clear (president Mahmoud) Abbas will turn over to Palestine without anything," said EL-Erian d' Essam, an elder chief in the Moslem brotherhood of Egypt. "the conference was conceived for public relations and the participants were obliged to take part," it disputed.
tinian lands.
Lebanon's former telecommunications minister Essam Noman, writing in the opposition al-Akhbar newspaper, said the United States had succeeded in "dragging the Arabs to a diplomatic talkfest".
Washington's message, he said, was "I am the policeman (an Arabic word-play on Annapolis) of the Middle East, responsible for your safety and stability. Beware deviousness and troublemaking, Israel isn't the enemy, Iran is".
Ghassan Charbel, editor of the London-based Al-Hayat daily, said Arab states had gone to Annapolis without illusions.
"They know that Israel wants to negotiate without being ready to pay the price of the solution. And they are aware that the Israeli negotiator will ask the Palestinian Authority for (conditions) it cannot provide," he wrote in an editorial.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas vowed at the 44-nation conference to try to forge a peace treaty by the end of 2008 to create a Palestinian state.
Arabs questioned whether Bush would push Israel hard enough to stop occupying and building settlements on Pales |
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