Peace talks give cause for hope and skepticism

After observing from Israel the just-completed Annapolis Summit, I think there's no better question to ponder than this: is the glass half-full or half-empty?

Depending on how you look at it, the meeting designed to jumpstart Israel-Palestinian negotiations was either a hollow spectacle of pomp and circumstance that produced nothing new or it was a fresh start, a course adjustment for the Middle East.

In fact, it's both, and there was no better illustration than the ironic fact that the summit fell, almost to the day, on the 60th anniversary of the vote in the United Nations General Assembly to partition the land into two states, one Jewish and one Palestinian.

Sound familiar? On Nov. 29, 1947, most of the 600,000 Jews in Palestine, and millions around the world, gathered around radios broadcasting the U.N. vote. The final tally for partition was 33 for, 13 against and 10 abstentions. The Jewish leadership accepted the U.N. plan, the Arabs vehemently rejected it, and a few months later Israel was invaded by Arab armies promising annihilation of the nascent Jewish state.

Looking at the glass half-empty, one could observe that not much has changed in six decades. Calls in the Arab/Muslim world for Israel's destruction still regularly ring out. There is no real acceptance of the Jewish people's historical attachment to the land; Israel is still mainly seen as some sort of European implant. The Saudi foreign minister announced his refusal to shake hands with any Israeli officials, and didn't even wear his headphones to listen to the translation of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's speech.

Yet the same glass offers hope, too. Israel now has formal peace treaties with two neighboring Arab nations, Egypt and Jordan, and below the radar relations with other Muslim nations. The fact that the United States-sponsored summit attracted 44 nations, - including 16 of the 22-member Arab League, most significantly Saudi Arabia's foreign minister and Syrian representatives - is an achievement. Given the standing of the U.S. in the Arab world because of the war in Iraq, there are not exactly Arab leaders banging down the door to meet with us.

A joint Palestinian-Israeli declaration to renew negotiations designed to establish a Palestinian state by the end of 2008 was issued - glass half-full. Yet even with negotiators meeting for weeks beforehand, the two sides couldn't agree on final language (437 words total) until just eight minutes before President Bush was to speak - glass half-empty.

There are any number of obstacles to point to as the two parties again go down a road that has failed them in the past. Will Jerusalem be shared? What of Palestinian refugees, and Jewish refugees from Arab lands? Israeli settlements? Hamas terrorism and its opposition to any negotiated accord with Israel? Iranian nukes?

Yes, plenty of questions. But in Annapolis, for a moment at least, the parties broke bread together, gave grandiose speeches, sat across from one another and talked, and hopefully listened, too.

So whether my cup is half-full or half-empty, at least there's something to toast. I'll drink to that.