Storm clouds in Gaza

US President George Bush still insists that he continues to be optimistic about the Palestinians and Israelis reaching a peace agreement before the end of the year. Virtually nobody else believes it is a possibility.

He does not talk of a grand master plan that would resolve all the disputes, whether they are the right of return, Jerusalem, settlements, checkpoints, Gaza sanctions or prisoners. The talk now is simply of defining what a Palestinian state would look like. Defining the borders, but doing so on a map or in a document, not demarcating it on the ground.

Nobody will start rolling up sleeves and actually begin shoveling the dirt and setting up construction signs that read “Work in Progress.” A Palestinian state by the end of the year would be only theoretical in nature and may be hypothetical, and its blueprint will surely be torpedoed after the first Israeli attack on Hamas or one Hamas rocket attack on Israel.

Bush does not appear as optimistic as he was when he first announced the Annapolis plan to bring peace at year’s end. For one thing, the speech he delivered at the Knesset underscored that the main emphasis of his visit was to celebrate the relationship between Israel and the US first and the peace process a distant second. Bush didn’t use his time in the Knesset to talk about what is supposed to be a top priority for him in his final year-the peace process he officially launched last November. In addition, a three-way summit with Palestinians and Israelis was not planned during his trip, another sign of the low expectations of any breakthrough during the visit.

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The Nakba -- the war of 1948 and the founding of Israel -- may have occurred 60 years ago but the Zionist project is much older. It began over 110 years ago and it hasn't finished yet. In other words, the Zionists started plotting and planning long before the Arabs were aware of their designs. By the time the Arabs did catch on the Zionists were better equipped for the clash that they had anticipated and, indeed, worked to bring about. It was only natural, therefore, that they beat us, seized our land and drove out our people.

While we succumbed to depression and loss of confidence, their victory fed Zionist self-confidence and their determination to continue towards the realisation of a project the true aims and objectives of which we had not even begun to fathom. Every time another clash erupted, as was bound to happen, mostly at their instigation, we would be surprised afresh by the ferocity of their aggression. Then we changed tack and made peaceful overtures. Whether it was to ward off their wrath or devote ourselves to reconstruction and development is immaterial since they refused to believe us. Claiming they needed to put to rest any doubts about our intentions they insisted upon "confidence-building measures" beneath which rubric their demands increased and became more unreasonable by the day. Instead of digging in our heels and reproaching them for failing to honour mutually binding treaties and understandings we acted as though we had no alternative but to cave in to their demands. Whether this was out of fear of them or because of a desire to win the approval of their allies it gave them the opportunity to twist our arms and rub our powerlessness in our faces. Now here we are, more than a third of a century since we have begun to try to live peacefully with Israel, so in thrall to our fear of Zionist cunning that even our dreams of the future have been turned into nightmares.

On the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Zionist state we must ask ourselves what we have learned from the catastrophe and whether we have taken stock of our position for the Arab-Israeli conflict is clearly far from over. A proper understanding of the past and, hence, the ability to seriously prepare for the future is, after all, contingent upon our acceptance of a number of facts.

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