US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrapped up her four-day shuttle mission to West Asia on Thursday without securing firm Arab commitments to attend a US-sponsored regional conference.

Although President George W Bush, who has called the gathering, said he was optimistic about its success, Rice failed to close gaps between the positions of Palestinians and Israelis. The Palestinians want the meeting to come up with a clear plan for the emergence of a Palestinian state in the Israeli occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza while the Israelis want it to endorse a vague “joint declaration” agreed by the two sides ahead of the event. 

“I do think (now) is a moment of opportunity, but there is very hard work ahead,” Rice said. But the Palestinians accuse Israel of prevarication and procrastination. President Ma-hmud Abbas said that Israel is “hindering the endeavour to reach a document of substance”, which will define solutions for each of the issues: borders of the future Palestinian state and Israel, the fate of Palestinian refu-gees, the division of Jeru-salem, the sharing of resources, and a land connection between Gaza and the West Bank.

Although the Palestinians are prepared to accept minor adjustments and land swaps involving 2-3 per cent of the West Bank, Israel seeks to hold onto Jewish settlement blocs sitting on at least 6-8 per cent of strategic land and to maintain security bases along the Jordan River with the Kingdom of Jordan.

Abbas has threatened to stay away from the conference if there is no solid gain for Palestinians from his attendance and said Israeli actions on the ground such as land confiscations in villages near Jerusalem and resumption of construction at a site near the Muslim holy sites in the Old City are undermining the effort to make progress in the ongoing bilateral talks on the core issues.

Instead of striking a positive tone, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has tried to lower expectations and called for compromises on both sides. Palestinians argue that they have already compromised eno-ugh by recognising the Jewish state in 78 per cent of geographic Palestine.