Don’t hold your breath, the upcoming conference in Annapolis has little to do with curbing and/or putting an end to Israeli domination and apartheid. But then again we knew this. It has little to do with the universally recognized international human rights, which the Palestinians are being systematically denied. But then again, sadly, we knew this.

So what exactly will be the outcome of this US-hosted Middle East peace conference?

War, according to a more realistic reading of US intentions by Ramzy Baroud in his piece titled, "Peace Conference: New Case for War" special to the PalestineChronicle.com

Thus the peace conference will likely conclude with the propagation of the following assumptions: that both Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Abbas are genuine in their intentions to achieve a lasting peace and bring one of the world’s most entangled conflicts to an end; that both leaders will agree to a vague set of terms according to which the ‘final status’ of negotiations is determined. Abbas needs enough promises from Israel to convince Palestinians that the light at the end of the tunnel (which they have been promised for many years) is within reach, and Olmert needs enough ambiguity in the conference’s final statement to prove to his shaky coalition that Israel is under no obligation to change its course and ongoing colonial projects in the West Bank.

Most Palestinians, other than the self-representative elites of Abbas and his dependents, are likely to reject any offer that falls short of fulfilling the minimum of their internationally recognized rights. There would be a visible dissatisfaction in the predictably indecisive outcome of conference, manifesting in widespread protests, especially in the Hamas-controlled Gaza. The violence into which Palestinians are provoked will, naturally, be blamed on the ‘enemies of peace’, those same enemies who were also chastised, imprisoned and tortured in the post-Oslo years.

Iran and Syria, who are likely to support the Palestinian opposition to the conference and its immediate outcomes – if any – will also be grouped into the enemies’ list. Any violent Palestinian response, regardless of the circumstances that lead to it, will be understood as Syrian and Iranian encouraged. With Israel already digging a hole for Syria – the September 6 bombing of Syrian territories and the justification offered by ‘anonymous’ top US officials that Israel has bombed a North Korean nuclear installation in Syria - a cause for war is already in the making.

However, like any other war fought in the Middle East and in which the US was involved, the lines need to be drawn more definitively: Israel, the US and the moderate Arabs to face up to Iran, Syria, Hizbollah and Hamas.

The peace conference is, in fact, the delineation of all of this and more. It will provide the media with the opportunity to bombard public opinion with half-truths and twisted facts regarding those standing for peace and those considered an obstacle to peace, obstacles that can seemingly be removed through violence, thus forming a new case for a new war.    

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