Big Fat Waste of Time

I wonder if anyone connected with this mess is under the illusion that the Palestinians want peace. I think this is designed as a "feel good" meeting - the parties get to walk away feeling like they tried to do something to bring about the "Middle East Problem".

It gives the Dems a few less talking points in 2008 (Bush ignored the Palestinian crisis). Jordan and Saudi get to pretend they care about justice. The Palestinians get to pretend to be serious about governance and boundaries when they just want Israel to empty out its jails again. And Israel gets verbally abused by all non-US/Aussie countries for being a cruel bully.

On July 16, U.S. President George W. Bush proposed to held an international conference this fall, which would bring together Israel, the Palestinians and some neighboring Arab states, to help resume the stalled Middle East peace talks.

In one of the first diplomatic activities to prepare for the upcoming conference, the two major roles, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, met in Jerusalem on Aug. 28.

The Israeli side said Olmert-Abbas meeting was "very constructive" and the two spoke about "fundamental issues that were necessary to bring about the establishment of two states for people." While the Palestinian side claimed that the meeting was "serious and in-depth."

Early this month, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana met with both Abbas and Olmert and stressed that the coming months would see "intense" for peacemaking efforts.

This came out of a Chinese newspaper, so we get a bit of Chinglish mixed in with the BS. I'd like to see Bush or Howard step up to the plate and say "We're not going to waste our time with this until we see some concrete progress made on the side of the Palestinians. Until then, we will cut off all humanitarian aid to Abbas and continue to supply Israel with weapons for defense. If you have a complaint, contact Dominique de Villepin".