Before the Annapolis peace conference has ended and before the ink of the documents the parties concerned said they have reached dried after strenuous efforts, Ehud Olmert prime minister of Israel shot the first bullet saying reaching peace before the end of 2008 might not be achieved.

Everybody attended Annapolis conference except for Israel pledged to get committed to a timetable to achieve what has been reached at the peace conference in addition to the option of a mechanism of follow up for reaching the aspired target on time before the end of the term of office of US President George W. Bush.

Bush wanted to make a tangible accomplishment to be connected with his name in future.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia necessitated defining a time table to carry out what has been reached and not to negotiate for good and that is exactly what happened.

But it seems that Israel has not completely reached the conviction of opting for peace as a strategic target, but it is back continuing with its old torn out strategy which it adopted in the past.

That is entering a closed cycle of negotiations without getting out of it and to discuss details to gain time and to have the negotiations partners out of patience in order to accept Israel's views.

What Olmert had said means that Israel is not serious in pursue for peace.

This is exactly what Israeli papers said when it praised Olmert for saving the ruling coalition as he did not pledge anything and kept saying what his predecessors used to say that, there are no sacred promises.

This omens bad and reaffirms that the good intents are more important than giving promises at night and when sun rises those promises evaporate.

Al Akhbar

29/11/2007