Annapolis: The spin is in

And so it turns out that Annapolis has achieved just about nothing. Well, except cause more media outlets, pundits, and world leaders to put the lion’s share of the blame for any failure on Israel. Reuters has a roundup of Arab opinion.

Lebanon’s former telecommunications minister Essam Noman, writing in the opposition al-Akhbar newspaper, said the United States had succeeded in “dragging the Arabs to a diplomatic talkfest”.

Notice how the subject of peace is treated as a horrible thing.

Ghassan Charbel, editor of the London-based Al-Hayat daily, said Arab states had gone to Annapolis without illusions.

“They know that Israel wants to negotiate without being ready to pay the price of the solution. And they are aware that the Israeli negotiator will ask the Palestinian Authority for (conditions) it cannot provide,” he wrote in an editorial.

What Israel is looking for is an end to armed attacks on its citizens. These are the “conditions” that the PA can’t provide.

Arabs questioned whether Bush would push Israel hard enough to stop occupying and building settlements on Palestinian lands.

“The Palestinians … want realistic moves on the ground, and that is where the U.S. faces the challenge if it is genuinely interested in salvaging its lost credibility,” said the English-language Gulf Today paper in the United Arab Emirates.

I’m halfway through the article and still waiting to see a single acknowledgement that the Palestinians must end terror attacks against Israel.

The Saudi daily al-Watan urged Washington to exert pressure on its Israeli ally, instead of “pressuring the party that has offered a solution”, referring to a Saudi-inspired Arab plan for peace and full ties with Israel if it returns to 1967 borders.

Olmert’s call for Arab states to forge ties with Israel now, rather than at the end of negotiations, drew negative responses.

“If normalisation between the two parties is placed before an agreement on the solutions, this is a sign that failure is coming,” said an editorial in the Saudi newspaper al-Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister attended the Annapolis talks, but kept his promise to avoid handshakes with Israelis.

Nope. Not a word about the Palestinians’ responsibility for ending attacks on Israel. And when you do find it, you find it in the most idiotic suggestion I have ever read, in what passes for a newsmagazine: Time’s Scott Macleod is perfectly willing to sacrifice Israeli lives to make peace.

One way to defeat the spoilers this time is to ignore any violence they sponsor and persevere toward the goal of a comprehensive Arab-Israeli settlement. Such an approach has merit, given that a majority of Israelis and Arabs desire peace and thus opponents could be scorned for prolonging misery and hopelessness. The problem is that Olmert and Abbas are politically very weak, thanks to past failures in peace and war, and will find it difficult to behave like statesmen in the event of new violence.

You got that? If a Hamas or PIJ terrorist blows himself up in a market, murdering and wounding dozens of Israeli men, women, and children, Israel should just ignore it and push forward with making peace with Fatah. And if it turns out that Al-Aqsa, which is part of the ruling Fatah government, took part in it? That Palestinian police helped effect the attack? Well, ignore that, too. Because it’s far more important that Palestinians have a state than that they stop murdering Jews.

Oh, it gets worse. After Hamas launches the murderous attacks, we are told that Israel should still ignore those attacks and negotiate with the murderers. We won’t be quoting that part of the article, because, well, it’s beyond stupid, and our collective IQ will go down for having read it.

The AP has given us a new boilerplate for the occasion. See if you can pick out the villain in this paragraph:

The Palestinians believe Israel is not ready for total peace and Olmert will face a difficult time politically as any deal takes shape. Meantime, Abbas is seen as reliable, but also weak and a leader who can’t in the end deliver on an agreement.

Notice the language. Israel is “not ready for peace,” and Abbas is “reliable, but also weak.” The problem is that Israel doesn’t want peace. The Palestinians do, but they can’t force it on their people. Get it? It’s not their fault. But Israel? Israel “is not ready for total peace.”

May I ask a question? WTF does that mean? Who says Israel isn’t ready for peace? Why is Israel not ready for peace?

What. Utter. Bullshit.

Israel is literally dying for peace, but the Palestinians are unwilling to make peace. Poll after poll shows that they don’t want two states, they want one. Poll after poll shows that they’re perfectly happy to keep on supporting suicide bombers, and that “resistance” is the best way to achieve their state—because, after all, it was “resistance,” not negotiations, that gave them Gaza. And apparently, the Palestinians don’t care if they live in a repressive theocracy, just as long as they’re not living with Jews.

The only good thing that came out of Annapolis is the fact that Olmert will lose his ruling coalition if he tries to force an agreement that most Israelis don’t want. I think Jerusalem is going to remain undivided for a while longer.

No, wait. There’s more good news that came out of Annapolis. The sky isn’t falling, as some people would have us believe.

Not yet, anyway. Have some faith, people.