So what exactly is different this time around? Well, if you believe some of the newspaper headlines, lots. Like the fact that Ehud Olmert has promised not to build new settlements or expropriate land.

And yet, as recently as September, Israel expropriated 1,100 dunams (272 acres) of Palestinian land in the West Bank to facilitate the development of E-1, a five-square-mile area in the West Bank, east of Jerusalem where Israel plans to build 3,500 houses, a hotel and an industrial park, completing the encirclement of Jerusalem with Jewish colonies, and cutting it off from the rest of the West Bank.

The conference simply generates new and ever-more superfluous and intricate promises which Israeli leaders can commit to and yet somehow evade. An exercise in legal obfuscation at its best: we won't build new settlements, we'll just expropriate more land and expand to account for their "natural growth," until they resemble towns, not colonies, and have them legitimized by a US administration looking for some way to save face. And then we'll promise to raze outposts.

Each step in the evolution of Israel's occupation -- together with the efforts to sustain it and the language to describe it -- has become ever more sophisticated, strategic and euphemistic.

The "Middle East Peace Process" is like one of those big budget Broadway extravaganzas; they go on for years, but with each revival the cast changes. What may seem like a tired production to some nevertheless manages to remain fresh to the gullible throngs willing to hand over the price of admission.

Unlike a few hours of theatrical escapism, however, the producers of the Middle East Peace Process hope that the audience will actually believe that what they are viewing on stage, whether performed in Madrid, Oslo, London, Washington or Sharm al-Sheikh is real-life and even has the potential to end the conflict caused by a century of western-supported Zionist colonization in Palestine.

In the latest revival, Condoleezza Rice plays the US secretary of state determined to bring the long-running conflict to a close with skillful diplomacy designed to put in place a "process" eventually leading to a two-state solution. George Bush, tired of being typecast as a warmonger, tries on the role of lame-duck president who spent years enabling Israeli colonization, but who, with an eye on his legacy, is now committed to peacefully ending the conflict once and for all.

US President George W. Bush and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority meet in the Oval Office of the White House Monday, 26 November 2007. (Eric Draper/White House Photo)

• Prerequisites for peace, Mustafa Barghouthi (17 December 2007)
• Israel's Palestinians speak out, Nadim Rouhana (12 December 2007)
• The next "generous offer"?, Neta Golan (7 December 2007)
• Will peace cost me my home?, Ghada Ageel (6 December 2007)
• Palestine: Moving beyond collective denial, Arjan El Fassed (4 December 2007)
• Meet the Lebanese Press: In the shadow of Annapolis, Hicham Safieddine (4 December 2007)
• The Palestine that we struggle for, Jamal Juma' (2 December 2007)
• Mission accomplished, Osamah Khalil (29 November 2007)
• Palestinians protest the Annapolis summit, Rami Almeghari (28 November 2007)
• Annapolis, as seen from Gaza, Laila El-Haddad (23 November 2007)
• Likudnik hawks work to undermine Annapolis, Jim Lobe (22 November 2007)
• Nothing less than our freedom, Mohammed Khatib (7 November 2007)
• The show goes on ... and on, Ali Abunimah (17 October 2007)
• Formalizing apartheid packaged as peace initiative, Neta Golan and Mohammed Khatib (16 October 2007)
• Bush peace confab a swan dive or belly flop?, Khody Akhavi (24 September 2007)

• PA forcefully disperses peaceful demonstrations, killing one, PCHR (28 November 2007)
• Rights orgs: Uphold international law at Annapolis
• Diaspora Palestinians to Abbas: Right of return not negotiable, Palestinian National Vice (1 November 2007)

• Audio: Crossing the Line focuses on Annapolis

• BY TOPIC: Peace Negotiations