Analysis: Did Annapolis Change Anything?
By Tzippe Barrow
CBN News - Jerusalem Bureau
December 5, 2007
CBNNews.com - JERUSALEM, Israel - One week has passed since the U.S.-sponsored Middle East peace initiative in Annapolis, Md. Now the question remains: What, if anything, has changed?
A Two State Solution
In his carefully crafted remarks to conference delegates and the world at large, U.S. President George W. Bush waxed eloquent in his vision of two states for two peoples, while deleting any references to Israel as a Jewish state.
That's because neither the Palestinian Authority (PA) nor any other Arab League member nation is willing to recognize the legitimate right of Israel to exist as an independent Jewish state.
The Israeli delegation had to be content with a reference to the Jewish homeland.
At the Annapolis conference, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agreed to let the U.S. arbitrate crucial decisions, such as future borders, the fate of Israelis in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), Jerusalem, the holy sites, and the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
The Palestinians maintain that these points are non-negotiable so Israel must yield.
The joint declaration of principles, which Palestinian Authority and Israeli officials managed to create, frames a future Palestinian state on land where some 250,000 Israelis live.
Realizing that vision will uproot not less than 100,000 Jewish families from homes and communities established over the past 40 plus years in Israel's heartland.
That experiment, on a smaller scale, proved unsuccessful in the Gaza Strip.
Where Jewish communities and thriving agricultural businesses once flourished, Palestinians launch rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel.
Most of the 10,000 Israelis expelled from their homes in the Gush Katif Settlement Bloc in the Gaza Strip are still living in temporary housing, many of them unemployed after losing their businesses.
Judea and Samaria
Meanwhile, Israelis learned two days before the Annapolis conference, three Palestinian policemen, members of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's security forces, murdered 29-year-old Ido Zoldan in a drive-by shooting.
Two of the three perpetrators were arrested the next day. They confessed to the attack and gave the name of the third policeman.
They turned over the weapon, supplied by the third assailant, which according to DEBKAfile, was provided by Israel for the PA security forces. The information was withheld until after the Israeli delegation returned from the Annapolis conference.
Checkpoints
Last week, IDF troops arrested two Arab teens attempting to transport three bombs into Israel. Yet the Palestinian Authority, backed by the U.S., insists that Israel dismantle checkpoints to allow free passage for Arabs living in PA-controlled cities.
It's anyone's guess where those bombs might have been detonated -- in a restaurant, a bus, outdoor or indoor market, a theatre, a school?
In the South
Israelis living in Sderot and surrounding communities in the western Negev rarely experience a day without Kassam rocket and mortar shell attacks.
That didn't change during or after the conference.
IDF soldiers, patrolling along the security fence, are frequently targeted by Palestinians on the Gaza side of the border. This isn't every so often. It's nearly a daily occurrence.
So what was really accomplished at Annapolis?
Most Israelis would tell you, not much.
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