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Each of the networks offered its own follow-up to yesterday's brief Middle East peace conference (text link) in Annapolis. ABC's Martha Raddatz pointed out that the trio of leaders that met at the White House--George Bus, Mahmoud Abbas, Ehud Olmert--is each unpopular among his own people: "They want to make history so that may be some sign of progress." She was skeptical that Bush would travel to the region. She characterized Annapolis as his "putting a foot in the water…the water would have to be awfully warm--the negotiations going very well--for him to get his swim trunks wet."
On NBC, anchor Brian Williams obtained a q-&-a with Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister of Britain, now a special envoy to the Middle East. Williams asked Blair about Hamas' lack of participation in the peace conference. "There will be a moment when we make an offer to the people of Gaza…The choice will then be for Hamas and the elements within Hamas. Do they want to pursue peaceful means to a two-state solution?" Then came an ambiguous formulation that Williams did not press Blair to clarify. "If they wish to do that, they can be part of it. If they do not want to say that, then it is very difficult to see how you can negotiate a two-state solution with people who are refusing to acknowledge the existence of one of those states." So Blair was either saying that Hamas would have a veto over a settlement--no deal unless it recognized Israel--or he was countenancing a State of Palestine that does not include Gaza--a deal without Hamas involvement. Time will tell.
CBS' mideast coverage offered one explanation as to why the region's Arab states "do not think America is on their side," as Wyatt Andrews put it. He went back to 1969 when President Richard Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger learned that Israel, under Prime Minister Golda Meir, had acquired nuclear weapons. According to newly released White House memos, their first priority was to keep Soviet nukes out of Arab hands and secondarily to try to persuade Israel to disarm. Nixon did suggest that the US "might not sell Israel 50 Phantom fighter bombers if Israel insisted on keeping the bomb--but Israeli leaders called that bluff, got the planes and kept the bomb," Andrews narrated. "It is a point in history that Arabs resent to this day."
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