The Muslim world was represented at Annapolis by fifteen Arab States. These were Israel's four Arab neighbours, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt, and, from the wider Arab world, Algeria, Bahrain, Morocco, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates, most of which had never recognized Israel and had no diplomatic relations with Israel.
The Arab League was represented at Annapolis by its Secretary-General, Amre Moussa. Four months earlier the Arab League had sent a mission to Israel, headed by the Jordanian and Egyptian foreign ministers, Abdel Ilah Al-Khatib and Ahmed Abdoul Gheit, to promote the 2002 Saudi Arabian initiative, based on Israel's withdrawal from all territories occupied since 1967, a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian State. The idea of a Palestinian State, the ultimate aim of Annapolis, had earlier been endorsed by President Bush, and by Ehud Olmert and his predecessor as Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon.
The twenty-one participants in the Annapolis talks from outside the Middle East included three Muslim nations, Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan, as well as Norway, the host of the 1993 Olso talks, and Canada. At the time of the Camp David talks in 2000, Canada was one of the countries that had offered to take in Palestinian refugees. Also present at Annapolis, as observers, were the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
The talks at Annapolis were devoted to creating a plan for future direct discussions between Israel and the Palestinians about the crucial disputed elements relating to any future Palestinian State: Jerusalem as the joint capital of Israel and the Palestinians, the Palestinian refugees, Israeli settlements on the West Bank, mutual security, and the borders of the two States. These issues were not discussed at Annapolis, but a timetable was agreed within which they were to be the subject of continuous negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
During the Annapolis talks, which lasted for two days, Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas both expressed the desire to create a meaningful dialogue and to reach an agreement whereby a Palestinian State would come into being. Olmert told the conference: 'I have no doubt that the reality created in our region in 1967 will change significantly. While this will be an extremely difficult process for many of us, it is nevertheless inevitable. I know it. Many of my people know it. We are ready for it.' In Abbas's words: 'Neither we nor you must beg for peace from the other. It is a joint interest… Peace and freedom is a right for us, just as peace and security is a right for you and us… War and terrorism belong to the past.'
For Israel, this last statement was an essential pledge that dialogue and not terror would be the way forward. As the meeting came to an end, President Bush announced on behalf of those present a 'Joint Understanding', which read: 'We agreed to launch immediately, in good faith, bilateral negotiations in order to conclude a peace treaty resolving all outstanding issues, including core issues, without exception.'
The obstacles in the way of making Annapolis work, especially within the timetable proposed by President Bush, which set the target date for the conclusion of a treaty at the end of 2008, were formidable. Hardly had the conference ended when, on December 2, it was revealed that three Palestinian policemen had been responsible for the shooting attack that had killed Ido Zoldan, a 29-year-old father of two from the West Bank settlement of Shavei Shomron. He had been killed—the day before the Annapolis summit began—when shots were fired at his car as he drove past the Palestinian village of al-Punduk. The three killers were members of the Fatah-controlled Palestinian National Security Force. Distressingly for many of the Israeli public, both Israel and the United States had been supporting this force financially and with weapons, as part of an international effort to strengthen Abbas and his Fatah-led government.
Two of the killers, both 22-year-old Palestinian policemen and members of Fatah, were arrested by Israeli forces. During their interrogation, the two confessed their involvement in the attack and handed over the weapon used in the shooting. They said that they had parked their car on the side of the road and waited for an Israeli car to pass by. When Zoldan's car appeared, they emerged onto the road, drove past him and opened fire. They told their interrogators that they decided to carry out the attack to 'scare settlers'. The third killer, also a policeman, was taken into Palestinian police custody.
Israelis watched with apprehension as the Fatah connection was made public. In the same week, from Hamas-controlled territory in the Gaza Strip, yet more rockets were fired across the border into Israel, hitting the town of Sderot. In an Israeli air attack on December 3 on a Hamas training camp in the Gaza Strip, three Palestinians were killed. But neither the West Bank killing nor the rocket firing and retaliation were allowed to derail the ongoing talks agreed upon at Annapolis.
In order to achieve a final agreement and Palestinian statehood by the end of 2008, Olmert and Abbas agreed that they would meet every two weeks, while at the same time Israeli and Palestinian negotiators would be in continuous session on each of the issues that needed to be resolved. As a confidence-building gesture, Olmert announced on December 2 that Israel would release 400 of the 8,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, most of whom had been convicted of terrorist offences.
The issues that would need to be resolved for the Annapolis timetable to be fulfilled, and for a Palestinian State to come into being by the end of 2008, were to be discussed in the year ahead at a series of international meetings. On the day after Annapolis, Bush, Olmert and Abbas met at the White House. At this meeting, held on November 29—sixty years to the day after the United Nations voted to set up a Jewish and a Palestinian State in a partitioned Palestine—Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the United States agreed to begin work on three parallel tracks.
The first track, that of Israeli–Palestinian bilateral negotiations, started with a Steering Committee meeting on December 12 between Israeli and Palestinian representatives. No American representatives were present. The Steering Committee was to meet on a regular basis to establish the framework for the negotiations that would lead to an agreement by the end of 2008. It was in part to oversee the work of the Steering Committee that Olmert and Abbas would meet every other week.
The second track agreed upon by Olmert, Abbas and Bush at the White House was implementation of the Road Map, with the United States in charge of a monitoring mechanism. Israel having declared that it would not implement any agreement until the Palestinians fulfilled their Road Map requirements, the monitoring mechanism, which would be the judge of when this happened, was a crucial element in furthering Palestinian statehood. A retired United States general and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, James Jones, was appointed head of the monitoring mechanism.
The third post-Annapolis track was to enlist the practical support of the Arab countries present at Annapolis, and of the international community, to produce 'a favourable regional environment'—essentially, Palestinian economic security and growth—to advance the two-State solution. To this end, the donor countries met in Paris on December 17 to put in place practical steps to help create workable Palestinian governing institutions and a flourishing Palestinian economy. The host of the Paris talks, Tony Blair, had been at Annapolis as the representative of the Quartet, and was able to enlist in his endeavours the British-based Portland Trust, an initiator of projects designed to help Palestinian businesses and stimulate housing development in the West Bank. From the United States, Condoleezza Rice gave her strong support to the American-based Aspen Institute's US–Palestinian Public–Private Partnership, committed to attracting international investment, supporting existing Palestinian businesses, creating jobs and training for Palestinians, and otherwise fostering economic opportunities in the Palestinian Authority through economic and social projects.
One of the goals of the Annapolis process was to delegitimize Hamas in the eyes of Palestinians and the Arab world by showing that the Palestinian Authority is a viable alternative to it. To do this, the economic track was considered essential.
Under the agreement at Annapolis, negotiations aimed at Palestinian statehood were to take place in the six months leading up to the sixtieth anniversary of the creation of Israel, and were to continue for seven months beyond. Such an outcome—an independent, sovereign Israel with recognized, secure and peaceful borders living alongside the equally independent, secure and peaceful Palestine—would offer calm, productive, harmonious, peaceful lives to two peoples caught up in what has seemed at times, and to many on both sides of the Israeli–Palestinian divide still seems, an intractable conflict.
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