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Bush administration neo-conservatives, allied with a group of U.S. senators, appear to have successfully torpedoed the upcoming Bush administration-sponsored Middle East peace conference. Initially billed as a gathering that would propel Israel and the Palestinians toward a “final-status” agreement, the November conference’s goals have now been reduced to little more than establishing a “set of principles” as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert put it.  

“No one has any idea what the conference will look like,” one Arab diplomat told the New York-based Jewish weekly Forward, “We are still waiting for the United States to come forward and tell us what is happening.”  

Well, some U.S. officials have been quite clear about what is going to happen: nothing. 

Deputy National Security Advisor Elliot Abrams, now the leading neo-conservative in the Bush administration, told Jewish leaders back in May that the White House had no intention of pushing a peace agreement on Israel, and that U.S. efforts would be restricted to improving free movement of Palestinians and strengthening Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Presidential Guard. 

According to Forward, Abrams told Jewish leaders that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s efforts in the region are “Just process—steps needed in order to keep the Europeans and moderate Arab countries ‘on the team’ and to make sure they feel the United States is promoting peace in the Middle East.”  

Abrams now denies he made the statement, but the Forward is standing by its story. 

U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) told columnist Robert Novak, that Abrams has prevented the United States from having a “coherent Middle East policy,” and that “a number of Israelis who would like to engage with Syria … have said that Elliot Abrams keeps pushing them back.” 

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Syria would boycott the conference if it did not deal with issues like the Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights. 

Abrams has a lot of help on the congressional side in his efforts to sabotage the conference. U.S. Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are pressing Rice to require countries that want to attend to cut support for “terrorist organizations,” meaning Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Palestinian organization Hamas. The countries would also have to recognize Israel.  

A statement from the Arab American Institute said, “If the goal is for Arab states not to participate in the upcoming conference, this [the loyalty oath] is the way to go.” 

From all indications, Rice doesn’t need much prodding to turn the conference into little more than a talking forum. Just before Rice left on her latest jaunt to the region, Assistant Secretary of State for Middle Eastern Affairs David Welch low-balled any expectations about the upcoming event: “It might be possible even in two months to aggregate these in a way that really gives a sense that we turned a new page.”  

Things are in such disarray there is even talk about delaying the conference until mid-December. 

If it happens, it is not clear Saudi Arabia will attend, and even the Palestinians are talking about taking a pass, particularly after Olmert’s comment that he wasn’t interested in a signed agreement, just “principles.” One aide to Abbas told Reuters, “He [Abbas] can live without a conference.” 

If Olmert and Bush don’t seem much interested in making peace in the Middle East, a number of Israelis and Jewish-Americans are putting their shoulders to the wheel. 

Some 40 leading Israeli musicians, composers, conductors and musicologists have issued a letter that reads, in part: “We protest the prolonged occupation that is destroying our country’s image. Our continued control over the territories and their Palestinian inhabitants is morally wrong. The only positive option is an attempt to conduct responsible negotiations with Hezbollah, the Palestine Liberation Organ-ization, Hamas, Lebanon and Syria. Peace is made with enemies.” 

The initiative is spearheaded by musicologist Dutchi Lichtenstein and composer Hagar Kadima. Lichtenstein told the Israeli daily, Haaretz, “The separation between involvement in music on the one hand and ideology on the other is unacceptable to me. Music is not divorced from the social context in which it operates; it does not come from outer space. Someone here creates and performs it, and teaches and disseminates it, according to a certain order of priorities. This entire experience is political; and if we don’t understand the political context and work for change, we will probably continue to be involved in study, and will delve into semiotic analysis and into performing the fine points of the work … but in the end they will end on the shelf covered with dust.” 

A group of leading Israeli writers, including Amos Oz, David Grossman and A.B. Yehoshua, have also called upon the Olmert government to open talks with Hamas. Yehoshua, author of 10 novels, including “A Woman in Jerusalem,” and “Five Seasons,” said the call was made to end “the very disturbing, very terrible situation for the inhabitants [of Gaza] and for the Israelis who live along the border” and have been subjected to rocket attacks. 

“We have many times negotiated with enemies who are totally hostile to Israel or don’t recognize Israel—Jordan, Syria and Egypt,” said Yehoshua. “In 19781 Menachem Begin agreed to a ceasefire with the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization] even though it was completely denying the legitimacy of Israel.” 

The novelist, playwright and essayist went on to point out that while PA President Abbas and the PLO are considered a friends of Israel, he remembers that 20 years ago “if you called for talks with the PLO, people said they wanted to kill you.”  

While the Olmert government has yet to respond to the writers, Yehoshua told the Independent that he felt the petition would help to “prepare the legitimacy” of such talks. 

Meanwhile, tentative merger talks are going on between the three major Jewish American peace and human rights groups—Americans for Peace Now, The Israeli Policy Forum, and Brit Tzedek v’Shalom—aimed at creating a pro-peace Jewish lobby to counter the influence of American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). 

One of the organizers told the Forward that the alliance wanted to send a message to Congress that “there are other voices in the community.” Another said that many American Jews “were dying” to present an alternative to AIPAC on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, although organizers are taking pains not to pick a public fight with the powerful Israeli lobbying organization. 

The goal is to raise $10 million, a figure that would double the combined annual budgets of all three organizations. 

The Israel-based human rights organization B’Tselem is opening a U.S. branch. Executive Director Jessica Montell says the goal “is two-fold: to insert human rights into the Washington debate on Israel-Palestine, which so often ignores the daily experience of the people actually living here [Israel]; and to inform and mobilize the Jewish community regarding human rights.” 

She also said B’Tselem would “provide assistance to local groups who would like their voices to be better heard in the U.S.” 

B’Tselem, which is particularly active in the Occupied Territories, is currently leading a fight to allow Palestinians to walk down one of Hebron’s main streets. The organization successfully forced the Israeli Self-Defense Forces to admit the ban was “unlawful,” but the street is still off limits. B’Tselem members accompany Palestinians when they try to use the thoroughfare. 

The organization can be contacted through its web site, and a check would be appreciated: PO Box 53132, Jerusalem 91531.