Middle East peace conferences tend to invite hyperbole and absolutism in the world's media, particularly those of the U.S. and the Arab world. Predictions abound. Wishful thinking – both pro and con – tends to substitute for cautious analysis. Annapolis is proving no exception.

"The Last Middle East Peace Conference?" asks Time magazine's headline writer, with the usual U.S. news magazine flair for the dramatic. Not likely, is the article's far less dramatic conclusion.

"Annapolis is just the first step," opines the Los Angeles Times. Similar headlines are found in papers as far flung as the Baltimore Sun and the Sydney Morning-Herald, reflecting the effectiveness of "guidance" coming from Bush administration spin masters who want to keep expectations in check.

Headlines and opinion pieces across the Middle East betray the spectrum of the region's politics. "The last Abbas-Olmert meeting" predicts Al-Quds al-Arabi, a London-based Palestinian daily. "There is no reason to boycott the Annapolis conference because its mere convening will save the Palestinian Authority from the danger of its being marginalized" reports an Al Hayat columnist. Yet, predicts Al-Hayat al-Jadidah, a paper loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, there will be "No peace now," because, adds Al-Khaleej in the United Arab Emirates, "American demands to the states of the region" are "actually Israeli demands." In Israel meanwhile, the left is proclaiming peace is at hand, while elements on the right are warning of a new Holocaust.

This paper falls somewhere in the middle. Annapolis represents an institutionalization of the evolving rapprochement between Arabs and Israelis. That Syria has agreed to be present at the table – albeit at a modest diplomatic level – reflects the reality that things are changing. This is a good thing. But it is unreasonable to expect that we will tomorrow learn that Jerusalem has been internationalized or that Palestinians who abandoned homes in Haifa more than a half-century ago can now pick up their keys. Small steps cannot be confused with breakthroughs. Huge dangers abound. The current Israeli government is weak; the Palestinians are deeply divided. And the region's many conflicts are all interlinked. Plenty of players have a stake in seeing the turmoil continue.

We share the sentiment of Haaretz columnist Shlomo Avineri who argues that Annapolis "is in fact a modest endeavor, and certainly not the End of Days." Or a New Beginning.