the charade that is Annapolis

ah......Annapolis....
Frankly it is just to distant and irrelevant and removed from reality for me to take seriously. For those of you who are naive enough to eat up the hype here are some excerpts and links:

from Karma Nabulsi's article in the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2216914,00.html

We have not given up

The Palestinian people will not yield to the west's cynical pressure on them to surrender

If you want bad symbolism, you need look no further than the venue. The US naval academy of Annapolis is the current representation of unrestrained global supremacy, from where young cadets are being sent forth to occupy Arab land by force of arms. Appropriate place, then, for the US to host the meeting between Palestinian officials and the Israeli state, with every important government and international institution in obedient attendance. No one has misunderstood the nature of this meeting or is vaguely fooled by what is taking place. What we have at Annapolis is yet another ultimatum to the Palestinian people to surrender their sovereign rights.

The language of the Middle East peace process has become utterly weary, intellectually bankrupted; embarrassing. The tarnished trickery of those tired catchphrases - "last chance for peace", "painful compromises", "moderates against extremists" - is now worn so thin a child would not be taken in. There is no peace process, and hasn't been one for a very long time. It is no secret this conference won't bring an improvement in the intolerable status quo. It is a meeting to legitimise that status quo.



from Laila El-Haddad's article in The Electronic Intifada, 23 November 2007
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9120.shtml

Annapolis, as seen from Gaza

The conference simply generates new and ever-more superfluous and intricate promises which Israeli leaders can commit to and yet somehow evade. An exercise in legal obfuscation at its best: we won't build new settlements, we'll just expropriate more land and expand to account for their "natural growth," until they resemble towns, not colonies, and have them legitimized by a US administration looking for some way to save face. And then we'll promise to raze outposts.

Each step in the evolution of Israel's occupation -- together with the efforts to sustain it and the language to describe it -- has become ever more sophisticated, strategic and euphemistic.



from Mazin Qumsiyeh
http://www.qumsiyeh.org/whathappensatandafterannapolis/

What happens at and after Annapolis

We expect accolades for Olmert merely saying Israel will freeze settlement expansions except in East Jerusalem and the large settlement blocks (the Road map demands a freeze in all Settlement growth including for "natural growth"). The Israeli paper Haaretz actually summed up well "According to the Israeli government sources, the Americans asked Israel whether it preferred to announce a settlement freeze or outpost evacuations. 'Of the two, a settlement freeze is easier than evacuating the outposts, because this only involves a declaration, not a confrontation with settlers in the field,' explained one [government official]." Olmert, like Sharon, will be labeled by the pandering US politicians "a man of peace". The apartheid (hafrada in Hebrew) state will be showered with more US aid (stolen from US citizens to satisfy the Israel lobby). Mahmoud Abbas will be covered in the media only when he talks about how bad is Hamas and thus will be labeled "moderate". Everyone will be expected to attack Iran verbally and soon in other ways and Israel and the US still hope to build a block of "moderates" against Iran by giving the illusions of progress on the issue of Palestine. The daughter of the terrorist who oversaw the bombing of the King David hotel will be praised for speaking eloquently about combating "Arab" and "Muslim" terrorism and thus advance her ambition to move from Israeli foreign minister to a future Prime Minister. It will be a great photo opportunity for all attending. Meanwhile, Gaza will continue to be starved (a creeping genocide) and four million Iraqis and seven million Palestinians refugees and displaced people will get angrier.