What Israel Wants From Annapolis

The only agreement Israel's leaders expect will result from the Annapolis peace summit is for Israel and the Palestinians to keep talking. Still, they are more than happy to participate, for two reasons. First, in private White House talks Monday ahead of the conference, Israeli officials hoped to persuade the Bush Administration to act more firmly and with greater urgency against Iran's nuclear program. Second, Syria's last-minute decision to join the conference is being interpreted by Israel as a chance to open up dialogue with a longtime enemy neighbor.

Israeli leaders believe their country will be greatly imperiled by Iran achieving nuclear weapons capability, and President Bush appears to concur: he recently warned that Iran gaining the know-how to build a bomb could spark World War III. But Israeli officials say they detect a waning of the Bush Administration's willingness to launch military action against Iran if diplomacy fails, especially among top Pentagon officials bogged down in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Israeli officials say that in talks with Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Prime Minister's Olmert's team will try to convince the U.S. to apply force against Iran.

Syria's decision to attend Annapolis is a "positive sign," said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday, adding that "Israel would favorably consider negotiations with Syria if conditions ripened." But for that to happen, says Olmert, Syria must first "break out of Iran's orbit" and stop aiding Palestinian and Lebanese militants. Damascus is harboring several Palestinian chiefs from the guerrilla organizations Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and it is allegedly sending arms, with Iran's help, to Hizballah in Lebanon. In exchange, Israel hinted that it might be willing to hand back the Golan Heights, Syrian territory seized by Israel in 1967. As Olmert's National Security Adviser, Ilan Mizrahi, said in a recent interview, "We need to explore peace negotiations over the Golan Heights. There is a true will on the part of Syria to have dialogue with Israel."

But Israel may be reading too much into Syria's attendance at Annapolis. The Syrian delegation is headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al-Miqdad, an academic who is outside the inner circle of President Bashar al-Assad. And Damascus decided to send him only after first consulting with Tehran. Iran seems to have assented, but that didn't stop President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from hosting his own anti-Annapolis summit on Tuesday, with Palestinian hard-liners from Hamas and Islamic Jihad as honored guests. Arab sources have told TIME that the Syrians only agreed to show up at the U.S. peace conference after prodding from the Saudis, and President Assad's willingness to deal with Israel remains doubtful since it would entail breaking ranks with Iran and his radical Palestinian protégés, based in Damascus. On the flip-side, Syria wants, more than anything, to recover the Golan Heights, and that may entice it into direct talks with Israel. Also, Syria is still smarting over Israel's air attack Sept. 6 on an alleged nuclear facility built with the North Koreans.

Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is worried about coming home empty-handed. One presidential aide confided that Abbas asked the Israelis to postpone the promised release of 450 prisoners until he is back from Annapolis, hoping that his being there to greet the freed Palestinians will distract from the harsh reality that he was unable to wring any key concessions from the Israelis about the shape and future of a future Palestinian state.

—With reporting by Jamil Hamad/Ramallah and Aaron J. Klein/Jerusalem