Music Promotes Peace in Palestine

Overture to peace in the West Bank
Article from TheStar.com -

Visiting musicians help give Arab youth the power of music at `Violinist' camp

July 05, 2008
Oakland Ross, Middle East Bureau
The Toronto Star

AL-FARA, West Bank–Take a limestone prison that once held Palestinian political detainees, add about 100 Arab children, furnish them all with musical instruments, sprinkle in 23 music teachers, most of them Europeans.

Let these ingredients simmer for five sunny summer days in the West Bank – and what do you get?

A somewhat wobbly performance of a Mozart Divertimento, followed by a properly wistful rendition of Pachelbel's Canon, all accompanied by a passel of earnest but happy young Palestinian faces, not to mention a proud parent or two.

In other words, you get just what Ramzi Aburedwan was hoping for.

"To bring them all together – this is really something," said Aburedwan, 29, prime mover behind a five-year-old Palestinian artistic endeavour called Al-Kamandjati, Arabic for The Violinist. "This year, the evolution has been tremendous."

This year, Aburedwan brought his summer music camp for impoverished Palestinian kids to this former political prison in Al-Fara, a small town outside Nablus in the northern West Bank.

An accomplished violist, Aburedwan recruited nearly two dozen musicians from various countries – including the United States, Britain, Germany, France and Italy – who are donating time and talent to help raise the level of music in a part of the world more closely associated with bombs and political bluster.

The instructors included an oboist and a flautist from L'Ensemble Orchestrale de Paris, a violinist formerly of the London Symphony Orchestra, an Australian conductor who now teaches music in Italy, and a German musicologist currently resident in Marseille.

You could call them Musicians Without Borders.

"These kids in five days of lessons are going to get farther than they would in 12 weeks of one-lesson-a-week," said Peter Sulski, a Boston-born violinist who divides his time between Massachusetts and London – and now the West Bank.

"I'm a community activist when it comes to music. I've long believed in music as a force for good."

In fact, all the children – who range in age from 7 to 16 – study music year-round, enrolled in programs Al-Kamandjati offers at a newly renovated building in Ramallah, de facto capital of the West Bank. The organization also offers music training in the Gaza Strip and in Palestinian refugee camps in southern Lebanon.

In the West Bank alone, about 300 youth study music in ongoing programs offered by Al-Kamandjati, which also distributes musical instruments without charge, thanks to funding from a variety of donors, both Palestinian and foreign.

Only the most highly motivated of those students were invited to the camp at Al-Fara, which unfolded within the low-rise, stonewalled chambers and courtyards of what used to be an Israeli jail and is now a recreational facility operated by the Palestinian Ministry of Sports and Youth.

Aburedwan said his father once was incarcerated here, and he remembers coming to visit, accompanied by his grandmother. But that was then, and this is music.

"It has been great, beautiful," said Rasha Dolani, 14, from the West Bank city of Jenin. "I want to be a great pianist."

Maybe she will be, although few, if any, of the children who study at Al-Kamandjati are likely ever to earn a living from their instruments.

That is not the point.

"Mostly, it's something else," said Sulski. "The idea is to strengthen their minds, their sense of cultural history, so that they can become a force for the future."

Still, it may seem odd that Arab children – heirs to a rich musical legacy of their own – should be schooled on Western instruments in a Western musical tradition.

Franz Dartmann, a German musicologist who is working on a new curriculum for Al-Kamandjati, said the distinctions between different musical styles are less important than the power of music itself.

"It's a bridge," he said. "It's another kind of music they can learn, and they learn it with pleasure."

That they do, as was apparent during an open-air concert the students performed on the final afternoon of their five-day summertime adventure.

Gusts of wind played havoc with the sheet music, but the players soldiered on, performing in ensembles, duets or individually for an audience of family, teachers and friends.

For a time, it was almost possible to forget the concert was taking place in the Middle East, home to what might well be the world's most stubborn conflict.

"If we all have something in common, it is music," said Aburedwan. "I just want to bring some hope and share something that I believe in so much."

Full article at Palestine Music program Promoting Peace


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Truce talks provide hope for Somalia and Palestine

The Egypt-brokered truce deal between Israel and Hamas regarding the Gaza portion of Palestine continues to move forward, and the new peace initiative out of Somalia is providing hope and inspiration to many in Mogadishu and other war-torn regions of this beautiful African country.

Peace 2 All,

Yuya



Hamas officials in Egypt to discuss potential truce with Israel


CAIRO, Egypt: Top Hamas leaders opened discussions Sunday with Egypt's chief of intelligence to work out a truce between the militant group and Israel, officials said.

On Thursday, Israeli negotiator Amos Gilad was in Egypt to convey his country's position on the latest Egyptian proposal in talks that have dragged on for months.

The officials said Moussa Abu Marzouk and Mohammed Naser were discussing with Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman these proposals.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.

Both sides have set tough conditions for a truce.

Israel wants Hamas and Egypt to stop the smuggling of weapons into Gaza and to promise progress in the talks to release Cpl. Gilad Schalit, an Israeli soldier snatched by Palestinian militants two years ago.

Hamas, for its part, is demanding Israel lift a blockade of Gaza that has imprisoned most of the territory's 1.4 million residents and caused widespread shortages of fuel, electricity and commercial goods.

Israel virtually sealed off Gaza after Hamas violently seized control of the territory in June last year. Continued Palestinian attacks from Gaza into the Jewish state have prompted Israel to intensify the restrictions on the entrance of fuel and commercial supplies.

The new round of mediation comes amid reports that Israel has dropped an earlier demand to include the release Schalit in any deal.

Hamas and Israel refuse to speak to each other directly, preferring present their proposals through Egyptian mediation.

The negotiations are conducted under a shroud of secrecy in an undisclosed location outside Cairo.

A Hamas spokesman said Saturday that the group's delegation will not make any decisions immediately, Ayman Taha said "they will listen to what the Egyptians have to say and then return to consult with the group."


Full article at Hamas-Israel truce talks




World asked to Support UN-brokered Peace Deal for Somalia

The international community must help Somalia's rival factions implement a UN-brokered truce in the war-shattered east African nation, the UN special envoy for Somalia said.

In an interview, Ahmedou Ould Abdallah expressed optimism that the June 9 accord reached in Djibouti would bring a halt to more than 17 years of civil strife in the volatile Horn of Africa country.

"All Somali parties have initialed the agreement except two individuals who are regarded as terrorists by the UN Security Council and the Americans," said Ould Abdallah, who is accompanying UN chief Ban Ki-moon on a 24-hour visit to Saudi Arabia.

"Now the ball is in the court of the international community: The Europeans, the United States and the Arab League," he said on Saturday. "They must help the Somalis implement a ceasefire."

Full article at: Somalian Peace Treaty provides hope for Mogadishu


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Jews, Muslims, Christians combine for Palestine Christmas concert

Music soars in the land of sadness

article from: TheStar.com

Palestinian violist unites musicians of all faiths for Christmas concert in tiny Christian outpost

December 23, 2007
Oakland Ross; Middle East Bureau

TAYBEH, West Bank–The concert commenced at 7 sharp, here in the last entirely Christian community in the Holy Land, an illuminated rosary of limestone houses and Christmas lights strung across the high Samarian Hills, 20 kilometres northeast of Jerusalem.

Lit by a bevy of crystal chandeliers, classically trained musicians gathered in the town's Latin Patriarchal Church, flanked by an altar, a glowing electric space heater and an audience of about 60 expectant souls.

After being warmly welcomed by David Khoury, mayor of Taybeh – who speaks English with a Massachusetts accent, the result of 30 years in political exile – the players raised their instruments, traded glances, then plunged into the initial offering on the evening's baroque program, the allegro first movement of Antonio Vivaldi's Concerto in F-major for Flute and Orchestra.

And, lo, it was Christmas time in the Holy Land. The spirit of the season seemed to radiate through the church and into the streets beyond, for Christmas without music wouldn't really be Christmas at all.

"We are the last and only entirely Christian village in the Holy Land," proclaimed Father Raed Abusahlia, parish priest at Latin Patriarchal, speaking shortly before the concert began.

"We were evangelized by Jesus Christ Himself."

Partly for that reason, an unlikely group of fine musicians – including Christians, Jews and Muslims – ventured through the darkness and winter cold last Wednesday to converge on this hilltop town to perform a Christmas concert of baroque music against a backdrop of sadness and war – sadness because Christians are fleeing the Holy Land in disturbing numbers and war because this is the Middle East, where armed conflict seems as deeply embedded in the rocky soil as olive trees, religion and tombs.

But on this night there was song, and it was song that brought a Canadian visitor here, on a winding, starlit drive through deep canyons and over lofty ridges, past an Israeli military checkpoint and into Taybeh, an ancient community where Jesus once sought refuge from his enemies.

In biblical times, the town was Ephraim. It was renamed Taybeh in 1187 by Salahaddin, the legendary Kurdish warrior who once captured Jerusalem from the Crusaders.

Taybeh was inhabited by Christians then and it is inhabited by Christians now, although their numbers are dwindling.

During the 1960s, Taybeh's population reached a high of about 3,400. It has since declined to 1,300 or so, and it continues to fall.

"There is not enough work, not enough money," said Norma Jasser, an elegant, 40-something mother of six who attended the concert with her brood.

"If anyone has the chance to leave, they will do it."

Palestinian Christians face the same trials that afflict the territories' Muslim majority – the economic hardship, political instability and reciprocal violence that are the wages of a 60-year conflict with neighbouring Israel.

And so the Christians leave.

But now it is Christmas time and Christians are celebrating in Taybeh and in many other towns scattered through the Holy Land.

This winter, for the third year in a row, many of them have been blessed by the gift of music, thanks to an ambitious series of concerts organized by a 28-year-old Palestinian musician named Ramzi Aburedwan.

Founder of a charitable Palestinian society – called Al-Kamandjati, which is Arabic for The Violinist – Aburedwan oversees a philanthropic program that provides musical instruments and training to hundreds of Palestinian children.

Three years ago, he launched a Christmas series of baroque concerts that swelled this year to nine scheduled performances – most of them presented in Christian churches, seven in the Palestinian territories and two in Israel.

The players include Palestinians, Europeans and Americans. They are Muslims, Jews and Christians.

Their surnames range from Machour to Ho, Nguenang to Barghouti, Karamintzas to Hewitt Jones – a thoroughly catholic group, in the secular sense of the word.

Financial and logistical support was provided by bodies that include the general consulate of France in Jerusalem, the Goethe-Institut in Ramallah and the Barenboim-Said Foundation, established by famed conductor Daniel Barenboim and the late Palestinian intellectual Edward Said.

But this is the Middle East, where political tensions intrude upon everything.

Not even the music of baroque composers Vivaldi, Georg Philip Telemann or Giovanni Battista Pergolesi are immune – and nor is the violist Aburedwan.

Last Sunday, he was stopped at Erez Crossing by Israeli border officials, who refused to let him travel from Israel into the Gaza Strip for a Christmas concert there, saying he lacked the proper documents.

Meanwhile, a dozen musicians accompanying him – all Palestinians in this case – were cleared for the same trip.

Aburedwan was later detained for two hours at the Israeli police station in the nearby town of Sderot before being released, but he was still not allowed into Gaza.

In protest, Aburedwan's fellow musicians refused to carry on without him; the concert scheduled for that evening at the Latin Church in Gaza City had to be cancelled.

"The Israelis said I was illegal," Aburedwan later said. "It's discriminatory, racist. They cut people off from people."

An accomplished violist, Aburedwan had recovered much of his composure and all of his artistry for the 90-minute concert in Taybeh.

The audience that night included a trio of nuns in blue habits and white wimples, as well as a cross-section of the village's population, mostly bundled into heavy winter coats and scarves against the chill bite of winter in the West Bank.

Built in 1968, the modern church boasts an airy interior, featuring a huge mosaic that depicts Jesus arriving in Ephraim, as well as vivid paintings of St. George slaying the dragon and a winged St. Michael in combat with Satan.

At the end of the concert, the audience rose to its feet and demanded an encore.

Abusahlia pleaded with the players to repeat the final piece of music in the evening's program – the rousing rondeau from the Ariane and Bachus Suite by Marin Marais.

The players obliged, and later several of the string players performed an impromptu outdoor program of familiar Christmas carols, performing on the stone stairs at the church's entrance, beneath the moonlight and a silent chorus of stars.

Later still, the audience members and musicians gathered for drinks and Arab finger food at a reception room in the presbytery, its interior decorated in the style of a Bedouin tent.

"Thank you for making our Christmas holiday joyous," Mayor Khoury told the musicians, summing up the sentiments of all the concertgoers.

"Thank you for everything.

"Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!"


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Americans for Peace Now urges diplomatic efforts with Iran

article from:

http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_23643.shtml


Americans for Peace Now urged President Bush to open serious, determined and unconditional diplomacy with Iran. In a letter to the U.S. president Tuesday, the group's chair, Franklin Fisher, and president and CEO, Debra DeLee, said the recent publication of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran "bolsters our conviction that the best interests of both the U.S. and Israel require direct, sustained, and unconditional U.S.-led diplomacy and engagement with Iran to resolve issues surrounding Iran�s nuclear program."

The letter urged Bush to view the intelligence report "as an opportunity to shift course, and to demonstrate the kind of real leadership and diplomacy necessary to deal effectively and responsibly with the challenge posed today by Iran."

Copies of the letter will be sent to all members of Congress and major presidential candidates.

The letter reflects Americans for Peace Now's longstanding contention that a U.S. policy toward Iran consisting of sanctions and threats of force is insufficient and potentially harmful to the interests of both the United States and Israel.



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Bush and Rice at odds over UN involvement in Israeli-Palestinian peace process

The Hammer and Tongs behind the Hugs of Annapolis

DEBKAfile Special Report, from Debka.org

December 1, 2007

No one at UN headquarters in New York remembers a case of a draft resolution being abruptly withdrawn hours before a UN Security Council session was scheduled to approve it. This is what happened to a US draft that would have endorsed President Bush’s announcement three days earlier at the Annapolis Middle East conference of Israeli and Palestinian consent to work toward a settlement of their conflict before the end of 2008.

The Council had been called into closed session Thursday night, Nov. 30 to endorse the Annapolis declaration. The text was buried hastily in an undignified scramble by the Bush administration after two days of sharp words between the White House and prime minister Ehud Olmert and his threat not to turn up for talks with the Palestinians.

This incident led also to the first real falling-out between President George W. Bush and his secretary of state Condoleezza Rice. He blamed her for seeking to bolster the Annapolis declaration by Security Council endorsement, thereby exposing the hyped-up event to the world as a charade and his own declaration as too flimsy to stand up.

The head of the Israeli mission, Danny Gillerman, denied being fully briefed on the American text - a diplomatic figure of speech which applies equally to the situation of the Israeli delegation at the Middle East conference in Annapolis and since. But as soon as the Israeli ambassador heard that Khalilzad had obtained the consent of the five permanent members of the Security Council to a closed session for approving the US draft, he urgently alerted Olmert and Livni in Jerusalem.

Gillerman warned them that a closed session means that neither Israel nor the Palestinians would be present or given a hearing. And that was not the only undesirable aspect:

1. The Arab side, which is represented by Qatar, would use the opportunity to augment the Annapolis declaration with additional clauses detrimental to Israel, and possibly win US assent.

2. Security Council endorsement would obligate Israel and the Palestinians to bring negotiations to a conclusion by the end of 2008, less than a year hence, as demanded by Saudi Arabia. Either side could face being found in violation of a UN resolution.

3. The Security Council would become the overseer of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process with authority to reconvene and weigh up progress. In other words, the bilateral Israel-Palestinian conflict would be relegated to international authority. Israel has always resisted this since the odds in the world body are traditionally weighted against the Jewish state.

Ambassador Gillerman alerted the Israeli prime minister and foreign minister to the short distance from UN sponsorship of the process to the dispatch of international troops to the region as a buffer between Israel’s counter-terror forces and the Palestinian terrorists ruling the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

In the Israeli ambassador’s opinion, the US initiative to bring the world body in as a party to the Annapolis declaration originated with Secretary Rice. She sought to punish Israel for not following her lead at the conference. He pointed out that the application to the UN directly contravened Rice’s own accords with the Israeli foreign minister.

Gillerman’s heads-up to Jerusalem sparked an urgent series of phone calls between the prime minister’s office and the White House. Olmert made no bones about threatening to pull out of the entire diplomatic track charted at Annapolis if the Security Council were to be brought in over its head.

After 36 hours of hammer and tongs, US ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, was instructed to call off the Council session and withdraw the text.

full article continues at:

http://www.debka.org/article.php?aid=1319

China and Russia both say Iran situation can be resolved peacefully

articles from:

http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/


Iran News

Putin underlines political solution of Iran nuclear issue

Russia's President Vladimir Putin underlined political solution of Iran's nuclear issue. According to Russia's Presidential Office report on Wednesday, President Putin in a meeting with foreign ambassadors in Moscow said, "I believe regional conflicts, including Iran's nuclear program and Kosovo issue cannot be solved through force." Putin underlined the necessity of using non-military and peaceful means in carrying out international missions. He added, "Russia will never deviate from democratic route and will observe human rights and other freedoms."
Nov 29, 2007, 14:20

Iran News

Chinese official: Iran's nuclear dossier should be solved through talks

Visiting China's Communication Minister and a member of Chinese Communist Party Li-Hoon Tai Haven in a meeting with Secretary General of Islamic Coalition Party Mohammad Nabi Habibi underlined that Iran's nuclear dossier should be solved through talks. In the meeting, the Chinese minister said, "Exchanging views between Chinese Communist Party and Iranian political parties, especially Islamic Coalition Party, is so important." Habibi, for his part, by referring to the history of ties between the two parties said, "In the Asian Parties Meeting, we should work together and push the meeting towards establishment of Asian Parties Union."

Israel and Palestine agree to talk peace, create Palestinian State

Israel and Palestinians okay peace and statehood negotiating plan

By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer


Opening a high-stakes Mideast peace conference, President Bush announced a joint agreement among Israeli and Palestinian leaders Tuesday to reach a peace pact by the end of 2008. Negotiations would begin within weeks to establish "a democratic Palestinian state that will live side by side with Israel in peace and security," he said.

The agreement was reached after weeks of intense negotiations and it was not clear until Bush stepped to the podium in the majestic Memorial Hall at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis that the two sides would come together on how to move forward on the path toward peace.

"Today, Palestinians and Israelis each understand that helping the other to realize their aspirations is the key to realizing their own, and both require an independent, democratic, viable Palestinian state," Bush said.

"Such a state will provide Palestinians with the chance to lead lives of freedom, purpose and dignity. And such a state will help provide Israelis with something they have been seeking for generations: to live in peace with their neighbors."

The first peace talks are to be held Dec. 12, Bush said, and are to continue biweekly after that.

Bush was followed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who said in prepared remarks that any Mideast peace deal should ensure that Palestinians have East Jerusalem as their capital, and he also calls for a halt to Jewish settlements in disputed lands.

Bush spoke before representatives of more than 50 nations and organizations that he had summoned to Annapolis for a daylong conference aimed at restarting the stalled peace process.

"The task begun here in Annapolis will be difficult," Bush acknowledged. "This is the beginning of the process, not the end of it."

"The time is right, the cause is just, and with hard effort, I know they can succeed," he said.

Said Abbas: "Let us make peace of the brave, and protect it for the sake of our children and your children."

At the same time, the Palestinian leader gave no indication that his side was willing to concede on any of the flashpoint issues that have derailed previous peace efforts: the status of disputed Jerusalem, refugees, the borders of an independent Palestine and Israeli settlements.

"I have the right here to defend openly and with no hesitation the right of my people to see a new dawn, with no occupation, no settlement, no separation wall, no prisons with thousands of prisoners, no assassinations, no siege, and no roadblocks around villages and cities," Abbas said.

He called for a peace that "includes a halt to all settlement activities including natural growth, reopening the closed Jerusalem institutions, removing settlement outposts, roadblocks, and releasing prisoners, and facilitating our authority's tasks of imposing order and sovereignty of law."

And Abbas also said that it was his "duty" to say that the fate of Jerusalem, which both sides want to claim as their capital, must be central to any deal. "We want East Jerusalem to be our capital, and to have open relations with West Jerusalem, and to allow all believers from all faiths to practice their rituals and to reach sacred places without unfairness and on the basis of what is guaranteed by international and human laws," he said.

Iran orders new trial in death of Canadian photographer Kazemi

Iranian court reopens Zahra Kazemi case

Iran's Supreme Court has ordered a new investigation into the death of the Iranian-Canadian photojournalist, Zahra Kazemi, while in custody in 2003.
Judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi said the court had objected to the acquittal in 2004 of an intelligence agent accused of beating her to death.

He said judges had "found some formal flaws" in previous investigations.

Kazemi, 54, died in Tehran in July 2003 having received head injuries during more than three days of interrogation.

She was arrested on 23 June 2003 while taking photographs outside Evin prison in the north of the capital, but was never formally charged with any offence.

The case severely strained relations between the Canadian and Iranian governments.

'Objection'

A presidential inquiry initially conducted into the journalist's death found that Kazemi had been killed by a "physical attack" while being held in custody in June 2003.


The verification branch found some formal flaws and had an objection regarding the jurisdiction of the court that dealt with the case
Ali Reza Jamshidi,
Iranian judiciary spokesman

In September 2003, the judiciary charged an intelligence ministry agent, Mohammad Reza Aghdam Ahmadi, with "semi-intentional murder". He pleaded not guilty at the opening of his trial a month later.

Mr Ahmadi was eventually acquitted in July 2004 "due to lack of sufficient evidence", a ruling that prompted the judiciary to conclude that Kazemi's head injuries had been the result of a fall caused by a drop in blood pressure brought on by a hunger strike.

In July 2005, a higher court rejected an appeal to investigate the death, saying it had no jurisdiction to reopen the case.

However, four months later an appeals court ordered the case to be reopened and upheld Mr Ahmadi's acquittal.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Mr Jamshidi said the verification branch of Iran's Supreme Court had reviewed the lower courts' rulings and ordered a new investigation to be undertaken by the judiciary.

"The verification branch found some formal flaws and had an objection regarding the jurisdiction of the court that dealt with the case," he said.

"The file has been sent to the competent authority for investigation."

Canada has repeatedly demanded that Iran agree to an international investigation into the journalist's death.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7115024.stm


© BBC MMVII

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana says Mideast peace possible by end of 2008

article from www.Haaretz.com

Solana: Israeli-Palestinian peace deal possible by the end of 2008
By Haaretz Service and News Agencies

An Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement could be in place by the end
of next year, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Wednesday at a joint news conference with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in Jerusalem.

"My impression is that the whole process is doable, it can be done. Everyone has to work so the process ends up well," he said.


Earler, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said he told Solana that "the foundation for the post-Annapolis negotiations with the Palestinians be recognition of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people".

Differences over the issue emerged this week when Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said Palestinians would not accept Israel as a "Jewish state," a definition that could enable Olmert to argue against the right of return for refugees in a final deal.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad echoed Erekat's statement on Wednesday. "We do not accept conditions of this type, not at all," he said on Al Arabiya television. However, Olmert told Solana that the matter was non-negotiable.

Livni, for her part, agreed with Solana that the upcoming international Annapolis peace summit was an opportunity for the peace process to move forward.

She said, however, that what was important about the meeting was "the day after."

The success of the parley, she went on, lay in the fact that it could re-launch an Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which has been dormant for the past seven years, since the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising in September 2000.

Livni also stressed that the Palestinians needed the support of Arab countries, who are expected to be present at Annapolis, "for the sake of the peace process."

"These countries must not dictate terms, or place obstacles in the way of
negotiations, but instead support bilateral Israeli- Palestinian talks," she said.

Arab countries were not present at the last serious attempt to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, at Camp David in the summer of 2000.

That summit fell apart as the sides were unable to agree on how to resolve core issues, and the Palestinian uprising broke out a few months later.

Solana met earlier with Olmert, who briefed him on preparations for the Annapolis meeting.


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