"Annapolis will not just be a performance, it is a stage on an agreed path that could lead to a peace agreement in the right direction."
Is that setting the bar low enough? At least Peres seems to think the meeting will involve some kind of progress -- later in the article, he is contradicted by "one Israeli official" who is quoted as saying:
"It's not a conference, as Israel has explained many times, but a meeting where representatives will read declarations without entering into negotiations."
Sigh.
Clearly I've been reading too much Language Log, because here's what I notice. When I saw the word "stage" following the word "performance", I initially assigned it the wrong meaning. The fact that "Annapolis" refers primarily to a place (kind of like "all the world"), rather than an event, is also a factor. (Obviously I'm not claiming it's not legit to use a place name to refer to an event that occurred or is scheduled to occur there. Witness "Pearl Harbor", "Kitty Hawk", or "Abu Ghraib".) Believing I am too smart to be tripped up by nothing, I submit that this is a clumsy translation. (Though I don't know what language the original statement was made in -- for all I know it was English!) And has Israel explained many times that the Annapolis meeting is not a conference, or claimed many times that it is one? I don't remember the name of the semantic phenomenon that causes me to favor the former interpretation, but it's the thing where saying someone "explained that X" (as opposed to "said that X" or "asserted that X") entails agreeing that X is true (though I suppose not as strongly as "proved that X"). The official clearly believes that the truth is "It's not a conference," so that's what Israel must have explained. Thus I am led to a picture of the Israeli government attempting many times to reassure its own citizens that their leaders are not getting ready to give anything away. Is that just me?
I found this after being persuaded to try reading some Al Jazeera news coverage.
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