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The Challenge of Annapolis

[Jerusalem Post] David Horovitz - PA Prime Minister Salaam Fayad is regarded as a sober, worldly and professional leader of a standard quite unlike any previous Palestinian politician. But the Palestinian public is more extreme than it was seven years ago. That Secretary of State Rice believed, in the earlier Annapolis planning stages, that it might be possible to make dramatic progress on the core final-status issues in the weeks preceding the summit is dismaying testament to American misassessment of the Palestinian mood and the room for maneuver of its leadership. Those around Fayad believe the summit is premature. Fatah is not reformed. The PA cannot provide effective security in the West Bank. The Palestinian public is in no mood for concessions, and even raising final-status issues is playing with fire. These voices are talking about the need to supplant whole generations raised on a diet of hatred and martyrdom. There is a second line of thinking - among Palestinians who discern a pattern of unilateral concession from Israel and see no incentive or imperative to compromise at all. Israel has left Gaza. It is talking about leaving all of the West Bank, albeit with settlement bloc adjustments. It is talking about unprecedented concessions in east Jerusalem. It is finding no answer to rocket attacks from Gaza and proved vulnerable to attack from south Lebanon. So why hurry, they ask, to compromise on the refugee issue and other maximalist demands?
2007-11-28 01:00:00
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