ISRAEL:Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert is already lowering expectations about the time-frame for a final settlement, writes Peter Hirschbergin Jerusalem
There is a new deadline for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal - the end of 2008. The sides have agreed, at the US-led summit in Annapolis, Maryland, to begin talks next month and have decided on a mechanism for conducting these talks. It will be the first time in seven years - since the collapse of the Camp David summit in 2000 - that the Israelis and Palestinians will sit around the negotiating table to discuss the issues at the heart of the Middle East conflict.
This is no small feat, considering the bloodshed and seemingly interminable stalemate of the last seven years. But it is not clear at all that two weakened leaders - Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas - can make the concessions necessary to reach a final status deal, let alone in the space of 12 months.
Already yesterday Mr Olmert was lowering expectations about the time-frame.
"I don't know. We will make all the effort," he said, when asked whether it was possible to forge a deal in the space of a year - the time that Mr Bush has left in office. "I don't want to waste time. If it will take more time, it will take more time."
Negotiations on core issues like borders, the status of Jerusalem, the fate of refugees and of Jewish settlements, are scheduled to begin on December 12th.
Mr Olmert strongly backed the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and he campaigned on a promise of doing the same in the West Bank.
That election pledge was killed off by the military campaign he launched in Lebanon last year, but he has not changed his belief that if Israel does not act to change the situation on the ground, it will be left facing a far worse situation - not just a Hamas-controlled Gaza, but a Hamas-controlled West Bank.
To move the negotiations forward, however, Mr Olmert will have to make bold concessions and exercise considerable political dexterity. It is not clear he can pull it off: right-wing parties have already threatened to quit his coalition if the negotiations become serious, leaving him possibly facing an election he does not want. His popularity ratings have been low since the Lebanon campaign, which the Israeli public believes he mismanaged, and a corruption cloud hanging over his head has further soiled his image.
Mr Olmert and Mr Abbas were also given a reminder yesterday of the hurdles they face in reaching an agreement, when a Palestinian was shot dead while attending a rally in the West Bank town of Hebron against the peace summit in Annapolis.
The man was killed when he was shot in the chest by Palestinian security forces loyal to Mr Abbas who were trying to disperse the crowd, made up mainly of Islamist opponents of the Palestinian president.
With Hamas having seized control of Gaza in June and now sending a clear message in the West Bank, Israeli leaders are sceptical about Mr Abbas's ability to implement any peace deal that may be reached.
In fact, some Israeli security officials have been saying in recent days that 2008 will not be "the year of peace" but rather "the year of Gaza" - a reference to ongoing talk in Israel about an extensive military operation in the coastal strip aimed at weakening Hamas.
Even if Mr Olmert and Mr Abbas are able to summon the political will and skill required to craft what would be an incredibly complex deal, it is not at all clear that Mr Bush, at the tail end of his second term, possesses the presidential clout needed to clinch a peace agreement.
"The United States will be actively engaged in the process," he said yesterday, with Mr Olmert and Mr Abbas standing by his side.
But it is doubtful that after seven years of trying to manage the conflict without getting overly involved, the president is ready to suddenly plunge into the treacherous waters of Middle East peacemaking.
"I wouldn't be standing here if I didn't think peace was possible," he said yesterday in the Rose Garden. Despite the new deadline, there are few who believe he will be standing there if and when it is made.