Annapolis, Like Leaders, Weak and Insincere

Yossi Melman
WashPost Blog

The only true moment of sincerity at the Annapolis Summit was in a back room of the basketball arena where hordes of journalists from all over the world were sitting on flimsy folding chairs, waiting for something to happen.

In that room, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir – dressed in traditional robes and headdress – spoke to a select group of news people whom he had summoned. That was a kind of coded message not to admit Israeli journalists.

Nevertheless, I evaded his minders and leaned forward to hear what he had to say. It was impressive. His English is Oxford-quality eloquent. When he was asked why his boss, the foreign minister Prince Saud, had declared he would not shake hands with Israeli leaders, al-Jubeir replied that, "This is a serious event. This is not theatrics."

In a sense, he was right - but practically wrong. The Annapolis gathering was a non-event on a world scale. The earth was not shaken at the U.S. Naval Academy on Tuesday. It is more than doubtful that anything tangible will come out of the mountains of words that poured out of the conference, preaching peace.

I feel that it's too late to achieve peace before George W. Bush leaves office, as the participants promised to try to do.

But a thought did come to me: Imagine what would have happened had the Palestinian President Yasser Arafat still been alive. An even more ludicrous thought: Imagine it is now 1995 or 1996. Hamas has just launched its first lethal suicide attacks against Israeli buses. And Arafat does listen to Israeli strategists' advice to deal with Hamas with an iron fist.

(Continued here.)