The much touted Annapolis Middle East Peace Conference will without doubt turn out to be a complete sham designed to offer the Bush Administration an empty photo-op devoid of any meaningful substance. Predictably, Israel has already said it will delay talks on core issues, including the status of Jerusalem, the borders of a Palestinian state, the future of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the fate of Palestinian refugees.
Also, off the agenda is the imprisonment of over 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, including many women and children. Hamas, the democratically elected ‘People’s Party’, has been barred from attending.
Aided by our tax dollars, the enormous repression of Palestinians will no doubt continue with the ongoing construction of the apartheid wall and thousands of barriers and police checkpoints that ‘Swiss Cheese’ the West Bank into tiny cantons. Meanwhile, Israel assured of unconditional US support, continues its unrelenting cruel treatment towards the Palestinians cutting off basic food, electricity and fuel supplies. In a stunning op ed article in the New York Times, Leslie Gelb revealed that every US administration since 1967 has privately favored returning almost all of the territory to the Palestinians for the purposes of creating a separate Palestinian state, notwithstanding public statements to the contrary. Finally, critically acclaimed authors, Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar (Lords of the Land) shed much needed light on the dark history of Palestinian suffering.
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