Everyone agreed on Tuesday that the Palestinians need help. And dozens of nations agreed in Berlin to donate money. But the Palestinians still don't have a state, and the Middle East is still a powderkeg.
A major, slightly disorganized 40-nation conference in Berlin arrived at a slightly underwhelming agreement on Tuesday, hoping to budge the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians forward. The glamorous but dull-sounding "Berlin Conference in Support of Palestinian Civil Security" squeezed promises of money and equipment to buck up Palestinian judicial and police infrastructure to the tune of €156 million ($242.7 million) from the international community over the next three years.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was there, along with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Middle East Quartet's special envoy. They raised €30 million more than expected. The idea was to strengthen Palestinian law and order, on the assumption that peace will be impossible without security in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier played the gracious host, conscious of his government's role as a Middle Eastern mediator. But the international community has agreed to build the structures of a state where there isn't any state -- yet -- and the conference comes off as a disappointment to most German commentators on Wedesnday, who seem to think they've seen it all before.
The Financial Times Deutschland writes:
"The results of international conferences on Palestine lately resemble the growth of developing economies: If you start with low expectations, you can always show progress. In this sense the Middle East conference in Berlin was a success."
"The attempt of the international community to lay the foundation for a peace agreement by strengthening vital infrastructure is important and right. At the same time, it shows just how miserable the situation in the Middle East really is."
The left-leaning Berliner Zeitung writes:
"The logic behind this project is simple: A Palestinian state will only exist if it has a functioning police and justice ministry, if the streets are safe, if people can resort to the rule of law. More security in the West Bank would also encourage the Israeli government to ease its pressure on the Palestinians there. One can follow this logic."
"But it's also possible to argue that the first step has to come before the second -- that building Palestinian state structures can only occur, for example, when a border with Israel has been determined. When the refugee problem has been solved, as well as the Jerusalem problem, the problem of a security fence, the problem of Israeli settlements in the West Bank."
"Merkel, Steinmeier and Rice and all the others have decided to put the second step first. This is activism. It's not necessarily wrong-headed activism, and it will cost relatively little. The international community can have a real effect on Palestinian police infrastructure. But peace is up to the Israelis and Palestinians themselves. (And) for decades they have not managed to bring it about."
The financial daily Handelsblatt writes:
"The role assumed by Germany in hosting this conference involves enormous responsibility. The Middle East is not only a military but also a political minefield. And Afghanistan serves as a warning that mere conferences aren't enough to put a state-building process in motion. Anyone who engages in the process and promises to help talk, must also deliver; they have to negotiate when things get difficult; they have to be willing and able to mete punishment when one side or the other turns away from the goal."
"For that reason it's highly symbolic that the German government announced, on the same day as the conference, that it wanted to build up its troop contribution to Afghanistan. This is an open admission that Afghanistan is still not stable, six years after an international intervention. Afghanistan shows how difficult it can be for a German government to navigate between its international commitments and its domestic politics."
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