Both Israel and the State Department paid enormous prices to get a unified Arab League presence at Annapolis. For pro-Annapolis people, the gamble is that the process itself will be able to substitute for the genuine willingness to make peace that - in other cases - lead to peace talks. For anti-Annapolis people, this is the very definition of a fetish where the outcome itself is supposed to substitute for what's underneath. Let's see which way that debate's breaking:

Bahrain has refused an offer by Foreign Minister Tizpi Livni to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, the Jordanian Petra news agency reported Monday. According to Petra, Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed al-Khalifa, who came under harsh criticism for an unofficial tete-a-tete he held with Livni at the United Nations earlier this fall, asked to wait until after the Annapolis peace parley before discussing possible diplomatic ties. Last Tuesday, Bahrain's parliament called upon the Gulf Arab emirate's government to cease all contact with Israel and to refrain from attending Annapolis, which it labeled "a waste of time"... Islamist deputy Nasser al Fadhala said that Khalifa should ritually wash his hands six times with water and then cleanse them with sand for having shaken Livni's hand.

Of course this kind of vicious intransigence - so clearly grounded in a visceral, literally physical repulsion towards Jews - is thinly coated by rhetoric about "the rights of the Palestinians." That's what makes Annapolis work. As long as Israel's Arab enemies are willing to pretend that the issue is geopolitical - at least out loud some of the time - then the State Department can go through the motions of coercing concessions out of Israel with nudge-wink promises that it will some how mollify anti-Jewish hatred.

Except everyone knows that it won't, because it's not the lack of a Palestinian state that makes the Islamists in control of the Arab League think that touching a Jew makes you filthy. Which is a problem not exactly limited to Bahrain.

References:
* Arab League: Israel Has To Move Behind 1967 Lines, Give Up Fence Protecting Itself Behind 1967 Lines [MR]
* State Department Bait And Switch Puts Golan Heights On The Annapolis Agenda, Gets Syria To Attend (Plus: Saudi Arabia Got Condi To Do It To Undermine US Anti-Terrorism Efforts) [MR]
* Bahrain spurns relations with Israel [JPost]
* State Department Succeeds In Screwing Israel By Getting Saudi Arabia To Annapolis, Can't Get Them To Touch Jews [MR]

Previously:
* On Eve Of Peace Summit, Fatah Promises To Launch Hundreds Of Rockets Into Israel (Plus: US Diplomacy Doing Great!)
* Blair: Israelis Need To Make "Psychological Shift" By Giving Up Stubborn Insistence On History, Experience, Reality
* Palestinians Prepare For Peace Summit By Shooting Israeli Civilian In West Bank (Plus: Two Dozen Rockets And Mortars Hit Israel Monday)