We are closer to peace than ever before,” said Shimon Peres at his official presidential home in Jerusalem last week. “Still, we have to recognise many difficulties.” Over a conversation knitted with references to Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore, Peres — the lone surviving member of the trio, along with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, that fetched the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 — was conspicuously confident in thinking forward to the outcome of the Middle East peace conference in Annapolis slated for November or December. “I imagine that a declaration of sorts will be issued. Real negotiations will be based on the declaration.”

Nonetheless, as Israel’s Ehud Olmert government and the West Bank-based, Fatah-led Palestinian Authority prepare for Annapolis, there is little consensus on what to even call the get-together, to be attended by a still uncertain supporting cast. Is it a peace summit, capable of delivering ‘final status’ talks, as the PA and the Arab countries overtly demand? Or is it a meeting to find a consensus strong enough to begin a process of talks, as Israeli leaders so obviously want? US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who shuttled around the region this fortnight, said at a press conference in Jerusalem that what she doesn’t want it to be is a mere photo-op.

However, talk of it being postponed has more or less evaporated in recent days. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, charged with preparing for Annapolis, is believed to have finalised her team. But there is still uncertainty about what issues Israel would be willing to have discussed at Annapolis.

... contd.