Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/u-s-backed-mideast-summit-opens-with-mixed-expectations Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, along with leaders from Saudi Arabia, Syria and other countries, plan to discuss prospects for a Palestinian state and other Mideast issues at a peace summit Tuesday in Annapolis, Md. Middle East experts assess the prospects for the conference. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. GWEN IFILL: Now to the Middle East peace conference. Leaders and diplomats gather in Annapolis, Maryland, tomorrow to try to jumpstart the latest U.S.-brokered Israeli-Palestinian peace effort. Secretary of State Rice has said she hopes for an accord by the time the president leaves office, but many obstacles loom.For more on this, we turn to Dennis Ross, a former chief Middle East negotiator in the first Bush and Clinton administrations. His new book is called "Statecraft and How to Restore America's Standing in the World."And Robert Malley, he was special assistant to President Clinton for Arab-Israeli affairs, and also served on the National Security Council staff. He's now the Middle East program director at the International Crisis Group, which promotes conflict prevention and resolution. Welcome to you both.Dennis Ross, what is the purpose of this meeting? And is there hope for it? DENNIS ROSS, Former Chief Middle East Negotiator: Well, I think the purpose of the meeting is to launch a renewed process. For seven years, we've had no peace process. Now there's an effort to launch a peace process again.I think that's a welcome development. Now, the question is, is there hope for it? It depends on what it is our measure is going to be. If the measure is to see negotiations resume, if the measure is to have a series of follow-on steps that will begin to change realities on the ground, if the measure is to get at least some agreements before the end of the administration, there could be hope for it.If the measure is going to be they're going to resolve the conflict by the end of 2008, then I would say they're bound to be disappointed. GWEN IFILL: Robert Malley, this is different from the kinds of conferences we've seen before, if only for the sheer number of people attending. How significant is that? ROBERT MALLEY: Well, at this point, as Dennis said, this conference is really about launching something that's going to come the day after Annapolis. It's about launching final status negotiations, implementation of phase one of the Israeli-Palestinian road map, and the third process is Arab engagement with Israel.If that's the point of the conference, then not much is going to happen over there. I mean, we know it's going to happen. It's going to be a series of relatively bland speeches. So what really matters is the choreography, and the pictures, and who's going to be there.