Going through the motions of a "peace conference"

Bret Stephens:

Henry Kissinger once observed that "when enough prestige has been invested in a policy it is easier to see it fail than abandon it." At the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., next week, the current secretary of state will illustrate her predecessor's point.

"Annapolis," as it is spoken of in diplomatic circles, was conceived earlier this year by the Bush administration as a landmark conference that would revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and lead to a final settlement by January 2009. It was to be modeled on the Madrid conference of 1991, which brought Israeli leaders face-to-face with their Arab counterparts and, as it seemed at the time, created a new paradigm in the affairs of the Middle East. Back then, the idea was that the Iron Wall between the Jewish state and its neighbors could be brought down just as the Berlin Wall had. Today, the operative theory is that Israel's neighbors, fearful of Iran's growing regional clout, have a newfound interest in putting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to rest.

Nice theory--if only the locals would get with the concept. The Egyptians are openly skeptical about the conference, which they say lacks "an endgame." The Saudis, supposedly among the beleaguered and newly pliable Sunni powers, can hardly be bothered with Annapolis; even now it's unclear whether their foreign minister will attend. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has told the Saudis he would rather resign than attend a conference that achieves nothing. He fears Palestinians would "turn to Hamas after they see that Annapolis did not give them anything," according to an unnamed Palestinian official quoted in the Jerusalem Post.

Then there are the Israelis, who have even better reasons than the Sunnis to fear Iran. Yossi Beilin, architect of the 1993 Oslo Accords and a political dove, predicts not only that Annapolis will fail, but that its failure will "weaken the Palestinian camp, strengthen Hamas and cause violence." His political opposite, Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu, calls Annapolis "dangerous" and warns that Israel risks giving away everything for nothing in return. Few Israelis take seriously the view that the creation of a Palestinian state offers a solution to their concerns about Iran. On the contrary, they fear that such a state would become yet another finger of the Islamic Revolution, just as Hezbollahstan is to their north in Lebanon, and Hamastan is to their south in Gaza.

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There is much more.

I may be one of the few people who do not think it is important to have a "Middle East Peace Process." That is code for an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. While many in Israel think the pull out from Gaza was a mistake, it is one with many lessons on why giving the Palestinians a state is at best overrated. What have the Palestinians done with a Gaza where they cannot blame their difficulties on "the occupation"? They have had a civil war. They continue to launch terror attack on Israeli villages. They have run their economy into a ditch. In short, the Palestinians have given considerable evidence that they are not culturally or morally capable of operating independently.

The unstated premise of the current talks is that the Palestinians are sufficiently weakened by the civil war to be able to make an agreement with the Israelis that will strengthen the Fatah party in its war with the Hamas death cult. Does that really sound like a foundation for peace?

It appears that every administration in the last 40 plush years has gone along with a premise that it is their responsibility to try to make peace in the "Middle East" which is code for trying to get the Muslims religious bigots to stop their genocidal campaign against Israel. It will probably take another 200 years to accomplish that objective.