Hope and expectation are at odds in the conference being held today on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at Annapolis, Maryland. The conflict is over-ripe for negotiation of a two-state settlement dealing with the key issues of Jerusalem, final borders, inter-state security and the return of refugees along lines that have been clear for years. But President Bush, today's host, has refused until now to take a real initiative in brokering talks and is no longer seen as an independent player. And both the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert are weak leaders distrusted by large domestic constituencies. Nevertheless progress could be made on a talks agenda if the will is there.
This summit has an unexpectedly broad participation from the Middle East. Senior Saudi and Syrian delegations are attending and the meeting has been endorsed by the Arab League. Despite initial hesitations, they are prepared to support an effort to relaunch talks if they have an established agenda and a deadline for completion. Too much is at stake in their region to disregard this opportunity - not least a suspicion that the US wants cover for its failures in Iraq and to clear the road and line up allies ahead of a possible attack on Iran. The conviction that progress on the core Israeli-Palestinian issue could moderate or alleviate other regional conflicts continues to drive its leaders, who welcome the Bush administration's apparent late conversion to this belief.
Much will depend on the document issued today between the Palestinian and Israeli sides and on the tone of President Bush's speech. There have been deep divisions for several months on whether the talks should address the four core issues on the conflict within a specified timetable or, as the Israelis argue, adopt a more modest objective of intermediate confidence-building before they are broached. Mr Bush will signal his administration's readiness to overcome divisions between the still dominant neo-conservative commitment to Israel and a growing realist awareness that without external US pressure its leaders will never make the compromises and sacrifices necessary for an agreement.
Hanging over these deliberations is the stark reality outlined in a recent UN map showing that Jewish settlements, roads, fences and military zones in the West Bank have made 40 per cent of its territory off-limits to Palestinians and the rest divided up into separate enclaves. That provides no basis for a sustainable political settlement. Mr Abbas is accused by the Islamist movement Hamas - not present in Annapolis- of aspiring merely to manage a continuing Israeli occupation if such conditions are left intact. Mr Olmert is suspected by his own right-wing base of wanting to dismantle too many of them opportunistically to secure his political future.
The immediate task is to agree a basis and timetable for negotiations which would allow hope about an eventual political settlement to grow even from such low expectations about the possibility of progress.