JERUSALEM — Next week’s Mideast peace conference is unlike any previous U.S. attempt to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because the price of failure has risen dramatically: radical Islamists could gain the upper hand in Palestinian areas and in an increasingly polarized Mideast.
Perhaps because of these high stakes, the latest bid to partition the Holy Land and end a century of conflict is receiving unprecedented international support, with more than 45 nations to attend the summit at Annapolis, Md.
There may be no better time for relaunching peace talks.
Beleaguered leaders are hungry for achievement, most Israelis and Palestinians long for a negotiated settlement, and moderate Arab nations appear ready to provide key backing to offset the growing influence of Iran — a reality highlighted by Saudi Arabia’s decision Friday to send its foreign minister to Annapolis.
But the region’s old demons are threatening new hope. Israel’s prime minister is kowtowing to his hawkish coalition partners, the Palestinian president controls only part of his territory, and extremists on both sides hold the power to torpedo any progress.
The two-day summit at Annapolis brings together Israelis and Palestinians in a U.S. effort to heal what former President Clinton once compared to an abscessed tooth that only hurts more with time.
At stake is not just Palestinian statehood but the survival of moderate forces in the Mideast and beyond.
“In this big picture, resolving this dispute is of colossal importance,” Mideast envoy Tony Blair said recently. “It is a signal of reconciliation across faiths and cultures. It removes the cause that extremists use above all else to try to ensnare moderates within Islam.”
The scope of the conference has been scaled back from trying to outline a peace deal to simply relaunching negotiations in hopes of reaching a settlement before President Bush leaves office in a year.
But just getting the sides to talk again is an accomplishment, considering seven years of diplomatic deadlock and fighting that killed 4,400 Palestinians and 1,100 Israelis.
