Who’s keeping count? Since THE Camp David peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, back in 1978, there have been so many bilateral, multilateral, regional, international, and you-name-it summits and conferences to enhance peace, security, stability and tranquility in the Arab-Palestinian-Israeli conflict that only obsessed media and news freaks can recall all of them. Annapolis is probably going to be more of the same.

Like most past meetings, this one began with high expectations that were eventually shattered by its participants’ narrow-mindedness and lack of vision. Annapolis is doomed to the same fate.

In an unusual consensus, the Israeli right (Netanyahu's Likud) and the diminishing Israeli left share the same bleak analysis: It would have been better if the Israeli government had not agreed to participate. The right fears that, somehow, something positive will come out of the meeting and Israel will be asked to make territorial concessions. The left warns that the projected failure would only worsen the situation and increase the chance of war. For the left, and for many realists, it would have been better to postpone the meeting.

Another truism is that the Bush administration has shown bad management and has done a lousy job in preparing the conference. Instead of turning the gathering of representatives from forty countries into an important milestone on the road to peace, this lack of preparation will turn Annapolis into a mere photo-op.

My only consolation is the reaction of Hamas and its Iranian patrons. If Hamas’s fundamentalist terrorists and Tehran’s anti-peace warriors are both angry about the meeting, it must be a good omen for peace-seekers.