Annapolis Rhymes with Petropolis

Fantasy vs. Reality in Palestine-Israel

put anything over on them -- not their own establishment or Israel or the U.S. No Palestinian victory is on the horizon, by any means, but this spirit of resistance may prevent the establishment at Annapolis from surrendering basic rights.

Israeli correspondent Gideon Levy touched on the essence of the conflict in a commentary in Ha'aretz that was completely at odds with Sunday's wishful front-page headlines and indeed with the very basis of the Annapolis summit. Addressing underlying Israeli worries that Israel will be pressed to make costly concessions, Levy noted that Israel is in fact not being asked to "give" anything to the Palestinians but only "to return their stolen land and restore their trampled self-respect, along with their fundamental human rights and humanity." This, he says, is "the primary core issue," but no one talks about this anymore; justice "has deliberately been erased from all negotiations."

Levy's realization is an extremely important element in understanding just what is wrong with Annapolis, as with all U.S. peacemaking going back to well before the Bush administration's current efforts. Justice for Palestinians has never been part of the equation, which is why no peace effort has ever succeeded and why Annapolis will also sooner or later collapse. Levy wonders, "Does Israel have the moral right to continue the occupation?" and points out that the world, even the Palestinian leadership, and particularly the Israelis who "bear the guilt," have never asked this core question.

Levy speaks only about 40 years of occupation, perhaps not realizing that, when this question is answered, the inevitable next question is, Does Israel have the moral right to continue in possession of the homes and land of Palestinians expelled and dispossessed in 1948? No true peace will ever be possible unless both questions are dealt with.

Perhaps Levy expresses the real hope for the future: that there are Israelis who have their priorities straight -- who recognize, as he says, that the commonly accepted core issues are secondary to the "primary core issue" of justice -- and who know that ultimately the grave injustice that Israel has done to the Palestinians cannot continue.

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