Not Anonymous

How does what compare the suffering of one to another?

I could be hypothetical, but living here and reading the News I can't; I think Hamas are crappy leaders and don't want what is best for their people; I think their method of fighting a siege does more harm than good in the end and in the end the IDF will march back into Gaza and re-occupy the place the Settlers left over two and a half years ago.
I think the people of Sderot and the West Negev have been completely abandoned by our leaders and in the inaction of the past seven years have absolutely no faith (with good reason) in this Government.

Does anyone?
I think the Annapolis Summit was nothing more than Pandering to a lame-duck Prez by two gutless leaders who don't have enough power to bring about real change in either Israel or Palestine.

In the West Bank there are still settlements being built and the different villages and refugee camps are being separated from each other by roads and road blocks. Not surprisingly there a lot of support for Hamas in the West Bank, where the inept leadership of Abu-Mazen and Fatah is glaring.
Also unsurprising, most of the people in Gaza aren't too happy with the leadership of Hamas, seeing as they are provocateurs who do their best to make their people suffer as much as possible in order to blame Israel on the lion's share of their suffering.
Hamas are a gangster gang who got the popular vote and abused their voters' confidence and hope that they will bring change and the little civil war that happened in Gaza has brought more suffering than not.

Unilaterally leaving Gaza without any talking to the Palestinians was hubris on Israel's part that the Palestinians would automatically begin to build a state in Gaza. How could they when there is so much infighting within the population? When the so many of the Palestinians are raised and taught to hate Israel and that the only hope they're taught is the hope of Paradise and not that of Independence.
In the West Bank this isn't even actual, with so many settlements which are still growing day by day and the Settlers using the resources for themselves.

As with everything it's far more complicated than "Big Bad Israel" and the "Poor Palestinians", to see thing so simplistically is ignorant and insulting to the situation, this is unfortunately the way lots of people see it.

At the end of the day, the individual people, me and you, that one and this one and all of us could get along.

It's a pity policy and government get in the way.

Straight off the Ha'aretz website.

A joint statement read by Bush himself at Annapolis, along with my little observations.

"The representatives of the government of the State of Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, represented respectively by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Mahmoud Abbas, in his capacity as chairman of the PLO executive committee and president of the Palestinian Authority, have convened in Annapolis, Maryland, under the auspices of President George W. Bush of the United States of America, and with the support of the participants of this international conference having concluded the following joint understanding:

"We express our determination to bring an end to bloodshed, suffering and decades of conflict between our peoples; to usher in a new era of peace, based on freedom, security, justice, dignity, respect and mutual recognition; to propagate a culture of peace and nonviolence; to confront terrorism and incitement, whether committed by Palestinians or Israelis.

So far so good

"In furtherance of the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security, we agree to immediately launch good-faith bilateral in order to conclude a peace treaty resolving all outstanding issues, including all core issues without exception, as specified in previous agreements.

Settlements, Jerusalem, Refugees, Militias, Military and such.
Yeah.
We'll see.
Jerusalem is already being discussed, most likely it will divided in some way. East to the Palestinians, West to the Israelis and the Old to be carved up and served to each faction. Where's King Solomon when you need him?

"We agree to engage in vigorous, ongoing and continuous negotiations and shall make every effort to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008.

Though no doubt the minute Bush becomes a Lame Duck there will be a slowing of the negotiations, seeing as this whole thing is orchestrated by the Bush Administration to make it look like they didn't fail at everything.
But like they say here, "Good for America, Good for Israel".

"For this purpose, a steering committee led jointly be the head of the delegation of each party will meet continuously as agreed.

The steering committee will develop a joint work plan and establish and oversee the work of negotiations teams to address all issues, to be headed by one lead representative from each party.

The first session of the steering committee will be held on 12 December, 2007.

And every single person owning a television and an internet connection will be watching.
*Glare*

"President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert will continue to meet on a biweekly basis to follow up the negotiations in order to offer all necessary assistance for their advancement.

They better.

"The parties also commit to immediately implement their respective obligations under the performance-based road map to a permanent two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict issued by the quartet on 30 April, 2003" - this is called the road map - "and agree to form an American, Palestinian and Israeli mechanism led by the United States to follow up on the implementation of the road map.

This where the USA inserts itself and decides that what they say, goes. Meaning that some kind of agreement must be made by the time Bush it booted out of the White House, seeing as none of the Republican or Democratic nominees have taken any kind of stand about the Summit.

"The parties further commit to continue the implementation of the ongoing obligations of the road map until they reach a peace treaty. The United States will monitor and judge the fulfillment of the commitment of both sides of the road map.

Because if Uncle Sam ain't happy, nobody be happy.

"Unless otherwise agreed by the parties, implementation of the future peace treaty will be subject to the implementation of the road map, as judged by the United States."

Mwahahahahahahahahahaha!!!

*sigh* It looked good until the whole America is the judge and will tell us what goes where and why. What shite!
PM Olmert and Chairman Abbas also made statements of their own which I'm patiently waiting to be translated into English so that I may put them here and give them my own little observations.

There are also analysis' of the statement over at Ha'aretz and Al-Jazeera.

Zipi Livni (Israel), Ahmed Queria a.k.a Abu-Alah (Palestine) and Condolleeza Rice (USA) have met this evening (afternoon Annapolis, Maryland time).

Syria has also decided to join the summit.

I cannot tell you how pessimistic I am about this. I get that an actual agreement isn't supposed to come out of this Summit, but from the start, even before the actual meetings began there was brouhaha after brouhaha.

Jewish State, Right of Return, Illegal Settlements in the West Bank, Hamas being naughty naughty terrorists, Iran making stupid statements about how Annapolis is going to be bad for the Palestinians and only intensify the Israeli Occupation - as if Ahmadinejad gave a flying fuck about the Palestinians suffering under Israeli Occupation and Hamas extremism and Fatah corruption.

I know it sounds like I have no hope for anything, but as you all know that's not what I'm about, but this whole thing looks like it's going to be such a farce (hence the title of this post).

I admit, my reading comprehension is not always the best. At times I read what I think I've read and not what is actually written, which is why I read this little ynet update (in Hebrew) more than once.
What exactly does "The Palestinian negotiating team has rejected the option of referring to Israel as a Jewish state in the Annapolis Declaration" actually mean?
Are the Palestinians going to actually accept the existence of Israel as a legitimate state without mentioning the "Jewish" part? Or does this mean we're still stuck on the fact that nobody likes anybody else and everybody is going to say "Your Mama" to each other. Because from reading the daily updates gearing towards Annapolis that's sure how it looks.

Personally, I think this statement was published after the unfortunate faux pas earlier today.

Tzipi Livni apologized, by the way... As if Ahmed Qureia (Abu-Alah) actually gives a flying fuck.

It still being strike season 'round these parts I took the opportunity fix and update my feed reader, so I've been reading the local (and less local) news updates and let me tell you, the more I read about Annapolis, the more it looks like the two sides are trying to piss on each other, though no one more than Palestinian factions - here and here. On each other, that is.

Pissing contests galore. I wonder what the patterns will look like when they've finished weeing all over the borders. The Israelis and Palestinians, that is.

As if that wasn't enough, Israel's religious nuts feel the need to stick their own dicks into the pissy situation.

Apologies for the piss and dick metaphors, but that's how looks to this slightly informed, politically aware Jew-girl.