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Conference Revives Peace Process

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By STEVEN LEE MYERS and HELENE COOPER, The New York Times

Published: November 28, 2007

ANNAPOLIS, Md. - The Israeli and Palestinian leaders committed themselves on Tuesday to negotiate a peace treaty by the end of 2008, setting themselves a deadline for ending a conflict that has endured for six decades.

The agreement stopped short of the binding negotiating outline that many Palestinians had hoped for, but it revived a peace process that the United States had left dormant for seven years.

Its success, both sides said, will depend in part on how vigorously President Bush pushes Palestinians and Israelis toward resolving the core issues that have bedeviled peace negotiators since 1979: the dismantling of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the borders of a Palestinian state, the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees who left, or were forced to leave, their homes in Israel.

In announcing the agreement at an American-sponsored peace conference here, Bush plunged the United States back into the role of an Arab-Israeli peacemaker - an approach he had previously shunned - at a time when wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have helped bring the American image in the Muslim world to historic lows.

"We meet to lay the foundation for the establishment of a new nation: a democratic Palestinian state that will live side by side with Israel in peace and security," Bush told the gathering of officials from 49 countries at the U.S. Naval Academy.

Flanked by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Bush cast peace between Israelis and Palestinians as part of a broader struggle against extremism in the Middle East.

It was a moment of diplomatic theater, endorsed by the attendance of a member of the Saudi royal family and orchestrated by Bush, who pledged that the United States would "monitor and judge the fulfillment of the commitment of both sides."

Understanding Falls Short

The agreement, cast as a "joint understanding" between the Israelis and the Palestinians, fell short of the detailed five-page document that Palestinian officials have been pushing. However, it went somewhat further than the Israelis had wanted, calling for an immediate start to wide-ranging talks aimed at reaching a final peace accord within 13 months.

"We agree to immediately launch good-faith bilateral negotiations in order to conclude a peace treaty, resolving all outstanding issues, including all core issues without exception, as specified in previous agreements," the joint understanding said.

"We agree to engage in vigorous, ongoing and continuous negotiations, and shall make every effort to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008."

There was an unspoken goal just below the summit's surface: stopping the rising regional influence of Iran and Islamic radicalism.

That is why despite enormous skepticism about the ability of the Israelis and Palestinians to reach a final peace treaty, there is enormous relief among the many Sunni Arab countries in attendance that the United States has re-engaged in what they see as the larger and more important battle for Muslim hearts and minds.

"The Arabs have come here not because they love the Jews or even the Palestinians," said an adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team who asked for anonymity. "They came because they need a strategic alliance with the United States against Iran."

Iran, Iraq Are Worrisome

Hovering over Annapolis are anxieties about the challenge from a resurgent Shiite and non-Arab Iran, with its nuclear program and its successful allies and proxies in southern Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories. These Arab nations fear that the tide of history is moving away from them, and that they are losing their own youth to religious militancy.

"There is a genuine concern and fear among political classes in the Arab world that the Islamic trend hasn't reached its plateau," said Hisham Melhem, the Washington bureau chief for Al Arabiya television. "They worry that Iran and its allies act as if this may be the beginning of the end of America's moment in the Middle East."

These concerns are linked in the minds of the region's leaders to the Palestinian issue, he said. "They want to try for a resolution to an Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has always been the focal point for mobilization of Islamic and radical groups."

Dan Gillerman, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, said: "This is the summit of our hope and their fear. It's our hope that at long last the Arab world will understand that the Israeli-Palestinian problem is not the core and can be solved, and their fear of Islamic extremism and Iran, which they call the Persian threat. This is what brought them here."

Other Middle East experts said that perhaps the best thing to come out of the conference is that it has committed Bush, Olmert and Abbas to pushing for peace.

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