Yet this would be a lame excuse for them forgetting about – or seeking to minimise – the existence and crucial importance of the letters exchanged between President Bush and Israel’s then Prime Minister – Ariel Sharon – on 14 April 2004 and a subsequent letter sent by Sharon’s Chief of Staff – Dov Weinglass – to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on 18 April 2004.

This correspondence resulted in courageous and highly dangerous decisions being taken by Israel to kick start President Bush’s stalled 2003 Road Map – envisioned by him as the key to resolving the Israeli-Arab conflict by 2005.

The President’s letter provided the catalyst – and the political justification – for Israel unilaterally evacuating the entire Jewish population of 8000 from Gaza and withdrawing Israel’s army totally from there without any preconditions or undertakings from Gaza’s highly hostile Arab population..

The Presidential letter also set out the framework that President Bush would support as Israel attempted to progress the Road Map that would create a new Arab State between Israel and Jordan.

President Bush’s letter clearly – and unambiguously – stated that;

1. The borders of the new Arab State would not encompass the entire West Bank despite successive Arab leaders having demanded this outcome for the previous 37 years,

2. Jewish towns and villages in the West Bank would be incorporated into the borders of Israel

3. The Arabs would have to forego their demand to be given the right to emigrate to Israel and

4. Israel’s existence as a Jewish State would be assured

Jerusalem Post Editor David Horovitz joined a group of Israeli journalists who met with President Bush in the Oval Office last week prior to the President’s visit to Israel to take part in its 60th Anniversary celebrations. In his editorial – published on 14 May – Mr Horovitz revealed the extent of the American loss of memory concerning the President’s 2004 letter in the following terms:

“Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, however, has been known to minimize the significance of this four-year-old letter. Just last week, for instance, she told reporters that the 2004 letter “talked about realities at that time. And there are realities for both sides….

Bush’s National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley has also given briefings to the effect that Israel has tried to overstate the importance of a rather vague letter, which was issued at a time when Sharon was seeking to bolster support for the pullout from Gaza.

And in answering my question, Bush did not at first even realize that I was referring to the 2004 letter. Hadley, who was also in the Oval Office, had to prompt him. “Okay, the letters,” the president then said, remembering.”

This is not simply memory loss but something far worse and more sinister.

In their apparent desperation to do any deal before losing the reins of power in eight months time, the President and his Secretary of State are treading on extremely dangerous ground in giving out signals that they are possibly prepared to renege on their solemn undertakings to Israel.

Israel has already paid a high price in relying on the President’s letter.

Gaza has been turned into a de facto terrorist Palestinian State. Israel has had to sustain a never ending barrage of rockets and mortars fired indiscriminately into Israeli population centres from Gaza by a bewildering variety of terrorist groups and sub-groups who would have had no chance of becoming so firmly entrenched in Gaza if the Israeli Army had remained there.

The latest shelling of a shopping mall in Ashkelon using an Iranian Katyusha rocket fired from Gaza signifies a highly dangerous escalation of the conflict. It also indicates the ease with which such sophisticated weaponry can be smuggled into Gaza through the Philadelphi corridor under the noses of the Egyptians despite Condoleezza Rice’s assurances to the Israelis that this would not occur.

Israel needs to make it perfectly clear to President Bush and his Secretary of State that any attempt to resile from the President’s letter will lead to the immediate termination of all further negotiations – that the President then will have no one but himself to blame for bringing his own vision to an ignominious end.

Israel’s Prime Minister – Ehud Olmert – has not forgotten – or overlooked – the critical significance of the President’s letter in any ongoing negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

President Bush and Ms Rice were quick to claim credit at the international conference held in Annapolis last November for a breakthrough in the resumption of those negotiations that would see the three clearly defined stages of the Road Map now being dealt with simultaneously rather than stage by stage.

Maybe the President and Madam Secretary were so overcome by their apparent success that they failed to hear – or perhaps hoped everyone might overlook – what Prime Minister Olmert told the gathered world leaders about the course of those future negotiations:

“The negotiations will be based on previous agreements between us, U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, the road map and the April 14, 2004 letter of President Bush to the Prime Minister of Israel.”

Jews have accumulated many memories – both pleasant and unpleasant – since losing their State, being expelled from there 2000 years ago and being dispersed to all corners of the globe. The Jews steeled themselves to ensure they never forgot who they were, where they came from and to where they would one day return.

Strength comes from remembering – not forgetting.

President Bush and his Secretary of State would do well to remember – and heed – this lesson as the State of Israel remembers the 60th Anniversary of its reconstitution on and in its ancient biblical homeland.

This call to remove every Jew living in the West Bank – 500000 men, women and children – was accepted in total silence by the United Nations. No urgent meeting of the General Assembly or any of its Human Rights Committees was called to condemn this racial vilification of Jews by a former Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority and its chief negotiator with Israel.

One remembers how fervently world leaders correctly argued that you couldn’t blame all Moslems for the terrorist actions of those few who hijack Islam and commit horrible atrocities worldwide in the name of Allah.

No similar statements were heard from those same leaders this week condemning Mr Queri for calling for the removal of those 500000 Jews because of the misguided actions of a few.

Collective punishment – not to be tolerated for Gazan Arabs – was perfectly acceptable when it involved West Bank Jews.

Indeed the UN Security Council met just three days after Mr. Qurei’s outrageous statement –yet raised not one word of protest or censure at his highly offensive and hate-ridden remarks.

Instead it passed Resolution 1850 (2008) by 14 votes to 0 – with Libya abstaining – declaring “its support for the negotiations initiated at Annapolis on 27 November 2007 and its commitment to the irreversibility of the bilateral negotiations“ and called “on both parties to fulfil their obligations under the Performance-Based Roadmap, as stated in their Annapolis Joint Understanding and refrain from any steps that could undermine confidence or prejudice the outcome of negotiations.”

One could not imagine a more destructive statement designed to undermine confidence or to prejudice the outcome of the Annapolis negotiations than that delivered by Mr. Qurei.

His demand defiantly flies in the face of the written commitment given by President Bush to Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on 14 April 2004 – forming an integral part of the Roadmap negotiating process under the auspices of the Quartet – America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.

In that letter President Bush stated:

“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. 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. “

In declaring its support for the Annapolis negotiations the Security Council conveniently ignored the basis on which those negotiations were undertaken by Israel as expressed in these clear and unambiguous terms by its Prime Minister – Ehud Olmert – at the opening of the Annapolis conference:

“The negotiations will be based on previous agreements between us, U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, the road map and the April 14, 2004 letter of President Bush to the Prime Minister of Israel.”

All the international players sitting in the Security Council – including outgoing US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice – were surely aware that Mr Qurei’s statement sounded the death knell for the Annapolis negotiations and signalled the end of any hope for a successful outcome of those negotiations.

Yet instead of condemning Mr Qurei’s statement – or demanding its retraction – Ms. Rice had the effrontery to tell the Security Council that Israeli and Palestinian negotiators:

“had made the choice to defeat an ideology of hatred with one of hope”

The only conclusion that one can draw from the Security Council’s extraordinary conduct in totally ignoring Mr Qurei’s statement is its unwillingness to face up to the fact that Annapolis is finished, President Bush’s dream has turned into a nightmare and the Quartet’s strategy in backing President Bush’s Roadmap has exposed it as totally impotent in having any influence to determine the allocation of sovereignty in the West Bank between Jews and Arabs.

The Security Council by its silence has offered encouragement to those Jew haters like Mr Qurei who for the last 130 years have opposed Jews having any right to live in their biblical homeland – the West Bank – or indeed within any part of the 23% of Palestine designated by the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter as the site for the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home.

In doing nothing to disavow the Arabs from pursuing their long standing enmity and racial hatred of the Jews, the Security Council has ignored a whole body of international law on the issue and given comfort to the long held Arab view that everything done since the creation of the Mandate in 1920 is deemed null and void.

“Jews out” is indeed a call that is still alive and kicking in the Middle East.

This racist fantasyland has been given a considerable boost by the Security Council’s flirtation with – and failure to unequivocally repudiate – Mr Qurei’s remarks when endorsing Resolution 1850. United Nations efforts to eliminate all forms of racism worldwide have been seriously compromised.

RIP President Bush’s Performance –Based Roadmap. RIP Annapolis. RIP the United Nations.

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.

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.