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Summit of low expectations
28/11/2007 12:07 - (SA)
Gaza City - Optimism about an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal was as rare in Gaza as a Coke or a Kit Kat chocolate bar, some of the small pleasures in life that no longer reach the Hamas-ruled territory because of an Israeli border closure.
In one Gaza home, neighbours sat cross-legged on mattresses around a TV set on Tuesday to watch speeches by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at the US-sponsored peace summit in Annapolis, Maryland.
"Why don't you kiss him!" one of the men yelled angrily at the TV when Abbas warmly shook hands with Olmert.
Tens of thousands of Hamas supporters chanted "Death to America!" at a Gaza City rally and denounced the Annapolis conference as a sell-out of Palestinian dreams.
Hamas leaders said throughout the day that Abbas does not have a mandate to negotiate and that the conference would fail.
Hamas, a radical Islamic group committed to Israel's destruction, seized control of the coastal territory after routing fighters loyal to Abbas's Fatah movement in June.
Protests against Annapolis were also held across the West Bank, which is ruled by Abbas's pro-Western government, in defiance of a ban on any demonstrations. At one protest Palestinian police opened fire, killing one.
In southern Gaza, Israeli aircraft blasted a Hamas training camp, Hamas and the Israeli military said. No one was hurt. Earlier, Israeli forces killed two Palestinian militants in separate incidents.
Peace talks to be restarted
At the summit, Olmert and Abbas agreed to restart peace talks, declaring they were ready to bargain over an independent Palestinian homeland.
In Israel, many were decidedly unmoved by the lofty speeches and high-minded goals of the conference. In coffee houses and in kiosks in downtown Jerusalem, television screens were turned off or tuned to soap operas and soccer matches during the speeches.
One kiosk owner, Yaniv Cohen, tuned his television to a local news channel broadcasting the summit, but the five or six customers drinking hot drinks in his shop weren't even paying attention. "We're working people. We don't have time for this," Cohen said.
Polls indicate a majority of both Israelis and Palestinians favour a negotiated settlement to their century-old conflict, despite vocal opposition to the latest peace moves.
The most active opponents of any territorial compromise are Orthodox Jewish nationalists, who have been re-energised by the conference.
More than 15 000 came to Jerusalem's Old City on Monday and thronged the Western Wall, the holiest site where Jews can worship, praying for the meeting's failure. The plaza was packed, and people lined nearby rooftops and alleyways.
They hadn't turned out in force since the failure of their protests against Israel's pullout from Gaza in 2005.
Low expectations
Visible support for the conference was subdued in Israel, where one local paper dubbed Annapolis the "summit of low expectations".
At some busy intersections in Israel peace activists distributed stickers picturing a bullet and a pen, urging Olmert to sign a peace agreement. A dovish demonstration outside the prime minister's official residence over the weekend drew a small crowd of several hundred people.
In Gaza City, signs of support were limited to a press conference by some two dozen academics, poets and intellectuals.
"Without Annapolis, there is no hope," said Ayman Shaheen, a political scientist at Al Azhar University.
Shopkeeper Wael Sarfiti, 42, a communist with a painting of Lenin next to his cash register, said a peace deal is the only way to topple Hamas in Gaza.
"If this conference fails and the peace process fails, it is going to be a disaster," said Sarfiti, a father of seven boys. He said his store is slowly running out of merchandise because of the border closures, imposed in June, after Hamas seized control by force.
Today some three-fourths of Gazans live in poverty and the deepening deprivation, mixed with 14 years of failed peace efforts, meant that even supporters of compromise with Israel couldn't work up much enthusiasm.
And in the Shati refugee camp - where some of the alleys are so narrow the dead are carried to the cemetery in blankets rather than on bulky wooden planks - the mood was decidedly derisive.
None of the eight neighbours watching TV in the Hamammi home said they support the conference, and the Hamas activists among them set the tone.
"Abu Mazen is only the president of Ramallah," Mohammed Nahal, 31, said, referring to Abbas's base in the West Bank. "He is collaborating with the siege (on Gaza)."
- AP
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