In a recurring imagery, they say, imagine a choice a Palestinian landing from outer space could face: a fully ‘liberated’ Gaza as it exists today under Hamas (Ariel Sharon’s government removed the last Israeli settlements in 2005), or a West Bank with its own cocktail of issues like disputed borders and degrees of prospects of future disengagement (with Israel) but in negotiation with Israel and recognised by a world community focused on encouraging investment in the territory. This is the imagery Israel would like its neighbours (‘the moderate Muslim countries’ is an explanatory phrase often used) to act upon.

But, in press reports and meetings with officials and opinion-makers, talk of the Annapolis meet comes couched in the wider regional implications of Iran’s nuclear programme. Taken as they see it, it makes sense of the confidence they appear to have that the Arab regimes will be more supportive of Abu Mazen’s possible peace efforts.

Eran Lerman, Israel head of American Jewish Committee, a thinktank that works closely with the Israeli government, says, “The strategic paradigm has been transformed in the region.” In his view, the Sunni regimes are as frightened of an Iranian bomb as Israel is. To supplement his point, he emphasises focus on what did not happen recently. “There was a certain air-raid (on Syria) on September 6.” It elicited “a deafening silence from what once used to called the Arab world.”

On Iran, Israel remains anxious about the matrix of other divisions within which it must manoeuvre. This week Prime Minister Olmert is in Paris and London, after rushing last week to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the immediate afterglow of his cordial visit to Tehran.

... contd.