Gov. Palin parachuted headfirst into very rocky terrain when endorsing President Bush’s proposal that would see a new Arab state created between Israel and Jordan – declaring unequivocally:

“A two-state solution is the solution.”

 Further endorsing President Bush’s stance of actively engaging with the disputants Gov. Palin asserted:

“And Secretary Rice, having recently met with leaders on one side or the other there also, still in these waning days of the Bush administration, trying to forge that peace. And that needs to be done, and that will be top-of-an-agenda item also under a McCain-Palin administration.”

What Gov. Palin seems to have ignored is the fact that Secretary Rice has been trying to forge that peace for the last six years – yet has not even managed to see it get to first base. American power and influence has once again been exposed as a toothless tiger when it comes to resolving the issue of Palestine.

The timetables meticulously laid out in President Bush’s original 2003 proposal have not been met. Frantic efforts by Secretary Rice to advance the negotiations since the conference held in Annapolis almost a year ago – supposedly aimed at reaching an agreement before President Bush vacates the Presidency next January – have gone nowhere.

The negotiations have stalled on the two following fundamental demands made by the Palestinian Authority that Israel cannot possibly accept and on which the Palestinian Authority refuses to budge:

Gov. Palin – no doubt – was anxious to avoid acknowledging what has been one of President Bush‘s worst policy failures – pursuing his personal vision to establish a second Arab State in Palestine in addition to Jordan which occupies 77% of the territory comprised in the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.

However Gov. Palin’s claim that it would be a “top-of-an-agenda-item under a McCain- Palin administration” indicates that they will continue to actively pursue this failed policy when it has no chance at all of ever being implemented unless the Palestinian Authority relents on the above demands. Since both these demands have been consistently pressed for the last 40 years by the Arab world without change or modification it is difficult to see how President Bush’s two-state solution can ever be achieved.

15 years spent by Israel in unsuccessfully trying to achieve just this very objective with the Palestinian Authority since 1993 only reinforces this conclusion.

How much longer then will John McCain invest his – and America’s – time, prestige and effort in pursuing President Bush’s failed policy? Hopefully he will let the voters know in the next scheduled Presidential debate. The question needs to be asked and answered.

The argument that he must keep on trying is pointless. This only perpetuates the killing and traumatisation of both Arabs and Jews without any prospect of ever ending or even defusing the conflict.

Senator Biden was far more circumspect in refusing to endorse the Roadmap in the strident terms adopted by Gov. Palin – stating that an Obama administration would employ:

 “thoughtful, real, live diplomacy that understand that you must back Israel in letting them negotiate, support their negotiation and stand with them, not insist on policies like this administration has.”

 Significantly these comments indicate that :

There is no doubt these negotiations will inevitably end in impasse. The sooner they are terminated and a new direction adopted, the sooner some real and tangible progress will be possible.

It certainly would be embarrassing for both John McCain and Barack Obama if either Israel or the Palestinian Authority was to announce the termination of the current negotiations during the last stages of this Presidential contest. Both contestants would then have to state their positions on the future direction of relations between Israel, the Palestinian Authority and their Arab neighbours – Jordan and Egypt.

At the moment Messrs. Mc Cain and Obama can both plead that this is a purely hypothetical question that is both irrelevant and unnecessary for them to answer. Their Vice Presidential running mates have served them well in the statements each made during their debate.

Forcing the issue now would certainly set the remaining Presidential debates – and the elections – well and truly alight. However given the nuances of the Middle East and the apparent agreement to negotiate at least until President Bush leaves office – any such precipitate action by either side is unlikely to occur.

Inevitably therefore the current game will continue to be played out until President Bush is replaced – when his vision can then be finally abandoned by either side walking off the field because of the atrocious conditions. America by then will have voted in a new President with no idea of what he would then do.

The operation of America’s democratic process is indeed a wondrous sight to behold.

David Singer is an Australian Lawyer, a Foundation Member of the International Analyst Network and Convenor of Jordan is Palestine International — an organization calling for sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza to be allocated between Israel and Jordan as the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine.

Previous articles written by him can be found at http://www.jordanispalestine.blogspot.com

Carter successfully brokered a peace treaty at Camp David in 1978 between Egypt and Israel, which has endured for 29 years surviving many strains that could have permanently ended the relationship during this period.

Clinton walked away empty handed in 2000 at Camp David after two weeks of intense one on one diplomacy with Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat.

Ms Rice certainly needs all the advice and help she can get as she struggles to get her planned international meeting in Annapolis off the ground. Even if she succeeds it could end in so much bitterness and enmity that it could signal the end of President Bush’s vision to create a new democratic Arab State between Israel and Jordan.

Why then did Carter succeed and Clinton fail and what lessons are there to be learnt by Ms Rice?

Three critical differences marked the negotiations that were undertaken by each President:

1. Two sovereign States – Israel and Egypt – were the parties in the Carter negotiations.

One sovereign State – Israel – and one non sovereign entity – the Palestinian Authority – were the parties in the Clinton negotiations.

2. Egyptian sovereign territory – the Sinai – was the territorial issue at the Carter negotiations.

Territory belonging to no sovereign State – the West Bank and Gaza – was the territorial issue at the Clinton negotiations.

3. Up to 7000 Jews faced removal from the Sinai to successfully conclude the Carter negotiations, whilst up to 200000 Jews faced removal from the West Bank and Gaza if the Clinton negotiations were to succeed.

Additionally, highly emotive issues concerning refugees and Jerusalem were the sting in the tail for Clinton’s negotiations once the territorial issue had been resolved.

Israel had no historic territorial claims on Sinai. Israel returned every square metre of the Sinai and removed all 7000 Jews living there to secure peace with Egypt.

In the process Israel also handed over the Alma Oil Field it had discovered valued at over $100 billion – which would have secured energy independence for Israel if it had been retained – as well as military bases and airfields.

100% of Egyptian sovereign territory captured by Israel in the Six Day War was thus returned to Egypt by Israel’s Prime Minister Menachem Begin – for solemn promises of peace contained on a piece of paper.

Arafat similarly demanded the return of every square metre of the West Bank and Gaza in the Clinton negotiations which would have necessitated all 200000 Jews living there being uprooted. If it had worked for Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat – Arafat probably reasoned -why would it not work for him?

There was one great difference.

The land Arafat sought exclusively for himself was “no man’s land “- territory in which sovereignty remained unallocated between Jews and Arabs and whose last sovereign ruler was Great Britain under the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine from 1920-1948.

Following Britain’s withdrawal in May 1948, Jordan had seized and occupied the West Bank – dispossessing those Jews then living there – until losing it to Israel in the Six Day War in 1967.

Jews – who had been entitled to settle in the West Bank from 1922 under Article 6 of the Mandate as later confirmed by article 80 of the United Nations Charter – started returning to live there after 1967.

Arafat was offered 90% of the West Bank and all of Gaza, refused to take it and ended up with nothing. 450000 Jews currently living in the West Bank complicate any such offer being renewed again.

Condolezza Rice has hopefully learnt the following four lessons from these two Presidential negotiations :

1. Israel has valid territorial claims in the West Bank – the biblical heartland of the Jewish people - created by the League of Nations and the United Nations, that will not be ceded in their entirety.

2. Removing 450000 Jews to satisfy the territorial demands of a non-sovereign claimant with an inferior claim in international law to Israel is a certain recipe for negotiations to fail.

3. Negotiations between Sovereign States are easier to successfully conclude – especially where territorial disputes are involved that have a linkage to those States historically, geographically and demographically as is the case with Israel, Jordan and the West Bank.

4. Negotiations that have failed are not likely to succeed in the future if the same demands continue to be made without any real change by the party who caused the original negotiations to fail.

Sean McCormack said Ms. Rice:

“is a student of history and has a keen appreciation for how we can apply the lessons of history, what we can learn from those who have gone before us”

Her discussions with Presidents Carter and Clinton should have convinced her that further negotiations on President Bush’s two state vision have the hallmark of Clinton failure stamped all over them.

Ms Rice needs to have the candour to tell the President just that and to formulate a policy which can lead to negotiations between Israel and Jordan on the future of the West Bank which can have successful outcomes like those achieved between Israel and Egypt in the Carter negotiations.

President Bush can still leave the Oval Office a winner and avoid being buried in the diplomatic graveyard among those who tried – and failed – to resolve any aspect of the Arab-Israel conflict.

To do so he needs to quickly jettison his two state vision which has gone nowhere in five years. His decision – either way – will become history too.

One major reason has been the inability of the PLO to seriously change its mindset and specifically revoke or amend the offending provisions of the PLO Covenant that call for the destruction of Israel and that prevent the creation of this new State as envisioned by Oslo, former President Bill Clinton, President George Bush and his Quartet partners – Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.

On 9 September 1993, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat had made that written commitment to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin as the quid pro quo for the Oslo negotiating process to commence between Israel and the PLO and for the historic handshake between them on the White House lawns just four days later.

A long and tortuous process by Israel and America then followed to ensure Arafat’s total compliance with that commitment. On 14 December 1998 President Clinton stated:

“I thank you for your rejection—fully, finally and forever—of the passages in the Palestinian Charter calling for the destruction of Israel. For they were the ideological underpinnings of a struggle renounced at Oslo. By revoking them once and for all, you have sent, I say again, a powerful message not to the government, but to the people of Israel. You will touch people on the street there. You will reach their hearts there.”

Yet despite this declaration not one article of the Covenant has been revised or revoked to this very day nor has that message touched the Palestinian Arabs or reached their hearts.

The Chairman of the Palestine National Council charged with making those changes – Salim Za’anoun – stated on 3 February 2001, in the official Palestinian Authority newspaper, that the Covenant remained unchanged and was still in force [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida as translated by MEMRI]

A look at just three of the thirty three Articles in the PLO Covenant shows why it is essential that every Article be reviewed and altered if any meaningful negotiations can possibly be undertaken post Annapolis.

Article 1

“Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people: it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.”

This article ignores any Jewish rights in Palestine. Why not amend it to read as follows:

“ Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people and of the Jewish people,and the Arab Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.”

Article 2:

“Palestine with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit”

This article absolutely prohibits President Bush’s two state solution and could be changed as follows:

“Palestine comprises the land contained within the boundaries that existed during the British Mandate from 1920-1948 and has now ceased to comprise an indivisible territorial unit. For purposes of clarification Palestine includes the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan which comprised part of the British Mandate until 1946.”

Article 15:

“The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine and everything that has been based on them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism being a divine religion is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own: they are citizens of the states to which they belong.”

This article ignores the binding effect of international law and is racist, discriminatory and offensive in the extreme. It needs to be redrawn to perhaps read as follows:

“The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed legal and binding. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are compatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism is both a divine religion and an independent nationality. Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they can like Palestinian Arabs be citizens of the states to which they otherwise belong”

How can successful negotiations be concluded whilst this current unclear and confusing mindset confronts the PLO and Israeli negotiators? How have these provisions been specifically rejected by the PLO ?

The PLO needs to immediately face these demons and excise them unequivocally and indisputably from its thinking if the ongoing negotiations are to have any prospect of success.

This is not a question of semantic pettiness or nit picking. It goes to the very bona fides of Israel’s negotiating partner and the sincerity and seriousness with which it intends to conduct these negotiations.

Perhaps the first indication of this troubling mindset – and the effect it can have on the negotiations – was the following remarkable statement recently made by the PLO chief negotiator Saeb Erekat :

“One of the more pressing problems is the Zionist regime’s insistence on being recognized as a Jewish state… Israel could call itself whatever it wanted, but the PA would never acknowledge Israel’s Jewish identity.” [ Jerusalem Post, 14 November 2007]

Sweeping this – and similar recent statements by leading Arab spokesmen – under the carpet will only guarantee the failure of future negotiations. They will be difficult and complex enough – without such institutionalised mind blocks to reconciliation and recognition that had supposedly been dead and buried with President Clinton‘s declaration on 14 December 1998.

The PLO needs to liberate itself first before it can hope to liberate any land. Failure to do so over the last 14 years has seen its continuing decline in influence. It is now time to get serious and stop playing games.

His closest confidante – the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice – suggested as much when she made this blunt observation after her visit to the Middle East this past week:

“I spent a lot of time on security issues, not on-the-ground today security issues, but how would you envision the security of two states living side by side, because they’re going to have to come up with a security concept between them. It’s one of the problems that we’re dealing with, frankly, in the Israeli population. And I heard it not just from the Israeli officials but from a broad range of Israelis. They had the withdrawal from Lebanon and it brought instability in Lebanon. They had the withdrawal from the Gaza, and look what happened in Gaza.

If, in fact, they’re going to be asked to withdraw from the West Bank at some point, what does that mean for the security of Israel? That’s a fair question. It really is. And so one of the things that I take back is that we are going to need to spend a lot of time thinking about how this state, if we are fortunate enough to be able to bring it into being, how it is going to relate to the security of its neighbor and vice versa.”

This marks the first time that the Secretary of State has so forcefully come to grips with the security guarantees that Israel needs to receive before the President’s two state vision can ever get off the ground.

It would be inconceivable that she would make these momentous comments without first having discussed them with the President.

Ms. Rice would be well aware that when President Bush first spoke of his two state vision on 24 June 2002, he laid down two preconditions necessary for its achievement:

1.The Palestinian people must elect new leaders not compromised by terror

2.These new leaders must build a practicing democracy, based on tolerance and liberty.

These conditions remain substantially unfulfilled more than 5 years later – and present indications are they are going to be a long time coming – if ever at all.

It was his recognition of this reality that inspired President Bush to call his planned international meeting in Annapolis next month – which he designed essentially to try and advance the fulfilment of these fundamental preconditions. His concern was well founded.

Both persons currently claiming to lead the Palestinian Arabs – Ismail Haniyeh and Mahmoud Abbas – are compromised by terror.

Haniyeh heads Hamas – a movement that openly calls for the destruction of Israel. Abbas – one of Yasser Arafat’s closest advisors – is now the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation which is no less vehement than Hamas in its desire to wipe Israel off the map. They only differ in the strategy they wish to employ to achieve their common aim.

A practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty are mere mirages on an invisible horizon.

The Arabs have totally rejected President Bush’s agenda insisting that their attendance at Annapolis be conditioned on substantive agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority being reached before the meeting even begins concerning the core issues of Jerusalem, refugees and borders

Significantly Ms Rice has rebuffed the Arabs attempted hijack of the President’s agenda stating:

“So I know we get very focused on, you know, what will be said about borders, what will be said about Jerusalem, what will be said about the refugees. In fact, a lot has been said over a long period of time about those issues and more will have to be said. But I’m also quite convinced that one of the really crucial pieces that has to be filled in are these concepts of how the states will relate to each other in practical terms concerning security and in practical terms concerning economic issues”

Perhaps the penny is slowly dropping and the realisation is dawning that the Arabs are totally disinterested in Israel’s security concerns and in meeting the very conditions laid down by President Bush as essential if his two state vision is going to be achieved.

The abandonment of the President’s vision does not necessarily mean that the conflict in the West Bank need continue unabated until a democratic nirvana is achieved there under a leader not compromised by terror.

The Arabs have already publicly signalled they would be prepared to consider Israel swapping some of its vacant land in return for keeping those parts of the West Bank populated by 450000 Jews.

Satisfying Israel’s security needs in the context of a territorial resolution that does not involve all of the West Bank remaining under Arab control can be achieved very quickly if Israel and Jordan divide the West Bank between them.

Jordan’s peace treaty with Israel already contains the following guarantees concerning Israel’s security that have stood the test of time for the last 12 years and remained rock solid through several crises:

“1. They recognise and will respect each other’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence;

2. They recognise and will respect each other’s right to live in peace within secure and recognised boundaries;

3. They will develop good neighbourly relations of co-operation between them to ensure lasting security, will refrain from the threat or use of force against each other and will settle all disputes between them by peaceful means;”

Negotiations between Jordan and Israel within the framework of this existing peace treaty offer the hope of a better life and prosperity for the Arab residents of the West Bank, will free them from Israeli occupation and achieve a measure of peace stability and security in the region not enjoyed for 60 years.

Such negotiations will not resolve the issue of refugees. No plan can ever hope to do so whilst the Arabs insist on millions of refugees and their descendants becoming citizens of Israel.

Stay with the vision or accept the reality? President Bush at last appears to be succumbing to the reality.

Dr Rice says the bride and groom are going through “knotty discussions” which appear to be heading anywhere but tying the knot. Bridesmaid Tzipi Livni has publicly admitted there are “problems”.

This is certainly not a match made in heaven – rather a catch hatched in hell. The body language and forced smiles say it all. At the moment alarm bells – not wedding bells – are ringing.

President Bush and Condoleezza Rice are both suffering from work overload as potentially catastrophic events in Turkey and Pakistan rapidly unfold to put President Bush and Dr Rice under great stress. Annapolis is probably the last place they want to be thinking about at this moment.

These latest crises are an unwelcome intrusion into Dr Rice’s crowded appointment book as she ponders whether – and when – to send out the wedding invitations. Five years of fruitless diplomacy have stymied efforts by President Bush to get the bride and groom together to conceive the President’s godson – a new Arab State between Israel and Jordan.

The bride is not yet quite convinced and wants the fourteen years old engagement to continue. The groom wants the wedding now and has downgraded his expectations of having the baby within six months from then to a date no later than January 2009. Conception and birth within that ambitious time frame would be miraculous – even by the Holyland’s standards – given the groom’s sterile performance up till now.

Who to invite and what to talk about at the wedding has presented President Bush and Dr Rice with real headaches. How to get people to even come is an even greater challenge.

Bickering guests are the last thing one wants at Annapolis. Who will sit next to who might be tricky – but a creative events organiser like the State Department will probably come up with suitable table placements to make sure no one feels too uncomfortable.

The pecking order will be important too. Who sits – or stands – to the left and right of the President and Dr Rice- for even a cameo appearance – must be dominating lots of time behind State Department doors.

The timed arrivals of guests and the proceedings will also be watched closely by the myriad press corps assembled behind strategically located barriers. Media placement must also be of great concern to avoid any diplomatic crisis. Will al-Jazira get a better barrier position than CNN, ABC, the BBC or the XYZ?

Should there be a head table or not? Maybe protocol will best be served by having a round table which would symbolically reflect the ever increasing circles the President and Dr Rice have been running around in trying to get this wedding off the ground.

Last minute cancellations are bound to occur causing more grey hairs at the State Department. This is not a wedding to be organised by the faint hearted.

Most weddings suffer from too many speeches usually leaving the guests thoroughly bored. At Annapolis we are told the guests will listen to a joint speech written by the bride and groom which will be either very detailed on the core issues of their future relationship or downright boring and devoid of any material content – depending on which unidentified reliable source you are prepared to believe.

Whilst the bride and groom grapple with what they are going to say, the matchmaker – President Bush – should have no such problems. Indeed he wrote his speech years ago. Hopefully he will dig it up, dust it off and remind those who come to Annapolis of the following three pledges he made to the bride’s father Ariel Sharon on 14 April 2004 to persuade him that this union could even be a remote possibility:

1. The groom’s family have to give up the idea of living in Israel.

“It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel.”

2. 450000 members of the bride’s family will not be booted out of their homes in the West Bank.

“In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.”

3. The groom will not get every square metre of the West Bank as part of the dowry.

“As part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC Resolutions 242 and 338.”

Come to think of it, Dr Rice should consider limiting her guests to those who are prepared to drink a toast in honour of these three pledges. Guests can tick three appropriately worded boxes placed next to the one requesting their dietary requirements on the return prepaid acceptance card – to ensure they don‘t get to the wedding under false pretences.

Otherwise the probability is that the bride will be left at the altar and no one will get to catch the bouquet.

Sadder still – diplomatic and security reasons will prevent the wedding customs of the bride and groom being celebrated at Annapolis. Jews break a glass at weddings to solemnly remind them – in their moment of extreme happiness – of the destruction of their two Temples in their capitol Jerusalem over 2000 years ago. Arabs choose to fire bullets indiscriminately in the air, sometimes wounding – and even killing – innocent wedding guests and bystanders.

Allowing the possibility of either to occur could turn this wedding into the disaster of the year – if it isn’t already before it has even been held.

Tickets have been finally mailed out for this eagerly anticipated event to a large number of so far unidentified VIP’s who will drop into Annapolis to attend a gala dinner on 26 November to be followed by a full blown performance the following day. They are slotted to fly out after meeting the two principal actors – Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas – who will be desperately trying to get the show on the road once again after a series of abysmal failures over the last four years

The media are busily speculating who will turn up and who will get the best seats in the house. Hopes are high that prominent and highly influential Saudi Arabian and Syrian entrepreneurs will join the audience to show their confidence in and unqualified backing for “Road Map” rather than their own production “Arab Peace Initiative“ which has not been publicly performed since it was written in 2003.

Optimistic expectations for the successful revival of “Road Map” have been dramatically toned down as disagreements have emerged over the past few months in relation to the precise wording of the program. Constant bickering and feuding between Olmert and Abbas have led to friction between them as each has tried to act out and justify his star role by influencing the content of the program to be presented.

Doubts that the show would be staged have been finally laid to rest as the President and his influential backers – Russia, the European Union and the United Nations – have decided that the show must go on – no matter what – in the best traditions of the theatre of the absurd in which this farce is being played out.

No doubt the producer – President Bush – and the director – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice – are hoping that the Annapolis revival will have a happy ending just like the very successful musical “Mary Poppins” currently running in London’s West End and on Broadway.

The storyline in “Mary Poppins” is summarised as follows:

“Jane and Michael Banks are in need of a nanny, every governess has quit and with their mother fighting for women’s rights and their father at the bank all hours of the day it is imperative they find a suitable candidate. When their father rips up the advert they wrote, they are resigned to the fact that their next nanny will have none of the attributes they are looking for – then Mary Poppins arrives and their lives change for ever.”

http://www.show-and-stay.co.uk/LONDON-SHOWS/mary-poppins.html

This is remarkably similar to the story that will be unveiled at the revival of “Road Map” in Annapolis:

“Jews and Arabs are in need of a mediator, every previous applicant has quit and with the Palestinian Authority fighting for Arab rights and Israel in occupation of the West Bank all hours of the day it is imperative they find a suitable candidate. As the Road Map is in danger of being ripped up they are resigned to the fact that their next mediator will have none of the attributes they are looking for – then Condoleezza Rice arrives and their lives change for ever”

No doubt Condoleezza would consider herself to be the equal of Mary who modestly spoke of her unique qualifications in the following manner:

“I’m practically perfect in every way, Practically perfect that’s my forte. Uncanny nannies are hard to find, Unique yet meek unspeakably kind, I’m practically perfect not slightly soiled, Running like an engine that’s just been freshly oiled”

Condoleezza will indeed have the opportunity to strut her wares at Annapolis and attempt to emulate Mary. She indeed has the capacity to change lives forever but current indications are that they will be worsened rather than bettered.

Her mediating effort in removing Israel from control of the Philadelphi crossing on the border between Egypt and Gaza has run more like a rusty engine than a well oiled machine allowing weapons and explosives to be smuggled into Gaza at will – thence to be subsequently directed at Israeli civilian population centres on a daily basis.

Her frequent flying trips to the Middle East using six star executive jets have failed to bring about any change of heart in the demands made by Mahmoud Abbas – unlike the loveable Mary who soared out of the skies and into the hearts of everyone she encountered using just her umbrella to do so.

Condoleezza will confront Mahmoud Abbas who has shown no inclination to play his leading role with any real conviction or authority as he stubbornly clings to his star billing whilst all indicators show he is not really up to the role in which he has been cast.

His co-star Ehud Olmert could soon find himself indisposed for future appearances in “Road Map” due to other commitments of a political and business nature that could keep him centre stage in other places thereby necessitating an understudy to replace him if the Annapolis revival is to be successfully continued.

A new buzz word could emerge to describe the performance at Annapolis rivalling “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” – the title of the smash hit in “Mary Poppins.”

That word could be Annapolisticclaptrapisovertlysurreptitious”. Broadly translated it means “the talk at Annapolis will be contrived, foolish, insincere and pretentious and will be characterized by misrepresentation of the truth.”

“Road Map” will probably be artificially resuscitated at Annapolis and briefly enjoy a right of return to the world stage, but it can never be the box office success its proponents envisage.

Circumstances have materially changed since the President’s original script was written but the uncompromising position of Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority hasn’t. Their continuing failure to act out their roles as described in President Bush’s explanatory program notes guarantees that “Road Map” will continue to languish and finally collapse in a heap like so many other similar stage shows such as “Oslo“ “Madrid” and “Camp David 2000“.

The President needs to go back to the drawing board, thoroughly rewrite the script and completely change the cast and characters. Just a spoonful of sugar can certainly help the medicine go down in the most delightful way.

Maybe then there will be something wonderful to sing and dance about.