Annapolis peace conference

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice organized and hosted the conference. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and U.S. President George W. Bush attended the meeting. A partial list of over 40 invitees was released on 20. November 2007, including China, the Arab League, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations most of whom have accepted the invitation. Syria, Saud Arabia and Egypt participated on ministerial level.

The goal of the conference was to produce a substantive document on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict along the lines of President George W. Bush's Roadmap For Peace, with the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state.

The conference on November 27, 2007, took place approximately 30 years after Anwar El Sadat, president of Egypt, visited Israel on November 19, 1977 to sign a peace agreement and appoximately 60 years after the newly-created United Nations approved the UN Partition Plan (United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181) on November 29, 1947, dividing the country into two states, one Arab and one Jewish. Jerusalem was to be designated an international city – a corpus separatum – administered by the UN to avoid conflict over its status. The Jewish community accepted the plan, but the Arab League and Arab Higher Committee rejected it.

Abbas stated that a clear agenda was necessary for the conference, and affirmed in early October that only a Palestinian state comprising the West Bank and Gaza Strip in their entirety would be acceptable, with any permanent Israeli control of land beyond its 1967 borders subject to discussion on a one-to-one basis. He further demanded that all six central issues be debated at the conference: Jerusalem, refugees and right of return, borders, settlements, water and security.

In October 2007, Prime Minister Olmert indicated that he would be willing to give parts of East Jerusalem to the Palestinians as part of a broader peace settlement at Annapolis, drawing considerable criticism from right-wing Israeli and foreign Jewish organizations and Christian Zionists. Knesset members from within Olmert's own ruling coalition have also been trying to stop such plans.

Prior to the conference, President Bush met with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the White House. After meeting with Olmert and Abbas, President Bush read from a joint statement, signed by both parties, "We agreed to immediately launch good faith, bilateral negotiations in order to conclude a peace treaty resolving all outstanding issues, including core issues, without exception," and that, "The final peace settlement will establish Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people just as Israel is the homeland for the Jewish people."

Wikipedia

EU Resumes Financial Aid to Palestinian President's Government

The European Union resumed financial assistance to the government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, ending a boycott imposed when rival Palestinian group Hamas temporarily formed a coalition with Abbas last year.

"We have been quick to react to the new situation,'' EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner told reporters today at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Viana do Castelo, Portugal. "We have changed the disbursement mechanism and we have reoriented it.''

The resumption of financial aid to Abbas's Fatah government on the West Bank, first announced in June, marks the end of the financial embargo imposed on the Palestinian leadership after Hamas, a sworn enemy of Israel, became part of a short-lived Palestinian unity government last year. The economic boycott of Hamas, which is in control of the Gaza Strip, continues.

The EU has been the main donor to the Palestinians, providing 700 million euros ($964 million) in 2006. The money went for welfare support and through United Nations agencies, bypassing Hamas.

Bloomberg