The Cairo and Jerusalem correspondents of the McClatchy newspaper group reported today that “In the Arab world, political commentary has been decidedly hostile. Most commentators suggest that the conference is a way to pressure Arabs to normalize relations with Israel. The word ‘normalization’, which many Arabs interpret as defeat, crops up in nearly every Arabic-language print or broadcast item on the meeting. Erfan Nizam al Din, writing for the pan-Arab newspaper al Hayat, condemned the talks in a tirade that accused President Bush of staging ‘a theatrical gesture’ aimed at ‘saving face for the United States after a series of failures’. Not even the name of the host city is safe. A humorist at a Saudi-owned newspaper, taking advantage of the fact that ‘ana‘ in Arabic means “I” and that “police” is a word widely understood in the Middle East, put the sounds together and arrived at: Annapolis, or ‘I’m the police‘. That, he joked, was a message from Bush to Middle Eastern leaders. ‘You remember that I am the police, and not only for the Middle East or for the peace process, but for the entire world’, the humorist, Hamad al Majid, wrote, imagining Bush’s opening remarks”.
On a rather more serious note, the same McClatchy story reported that “According to Israeli newspapers, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had hoped to prod Olmert into making concessions on Jerusalem and Jewish settlements in the West Bank, but she backed off after Olmert warned her that his coalition would crumble if he went too far“. This story, reported from Jerusalem and Cairo for the McClatchy newspaper group, is here.
Tags: Annapolis conference