Saturday, December 1, 2007

"Annapolis in a nutshell"

By Dan Hamblin

Well it was an eventful two days in Annapolis. There were representatives there from many different nations of the Middle East. They ate, they talked, they took their jabs at America and they went home. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stayed an extra day with US President George W. Bush to discuss the Iranian nuclear program.
Both sides want peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis but there are many things to iron out before that can ever be accomplished. During the summit Moscow announced that they too would be interested in holding a summit between the nations as well, sure why not, we can't have the United States as the peace maker; we need power hungry Vladimir Putin to take center stage.
Be sure to check the Russian election results as Putin forces everyone to vote for him as prime minister which is this coming Sunday. (12/02/2007) Many Russian employers are "making sure" their employees cast their vote for the "right" person and have gone as far as to threaten them with their jobs if they vote "wrong".
There are mixed emotions about the Annapolis summit, many feel it was doomed from the beginning but Israel seems optimistic about it. It has already been made perfectly clear by Hamas that regardless of the outcome they will prevail no matter what it takes. I tend to believe that statement with Iran providing the weapons which will most likely contain nuclear weapons very soon.
The plan for now is to have a meeting every two weeks between Palestine and Israel to get the talks going. Bush has agreed to intervene as much as possible to make sure he makes large mess of this situation as only he can do. (ie. Iraq) Folks, this could very well be the 7 year treaty coming here. Israel has made it clear that there will be no negotiations about Jerusalem, it will remain the capital of Israel and will in no way be changed by the treaty. Let's sit back and watch these revelations unfold, this is happening now in our generation. These are the last days.