General skepticism that surrounded the U.S.-sponsored gathering continued to resonate Thursday, a day after U.S. President George W. Bush pledged full support for the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.

"I wouldn't be standing here if I didn't believe that peace was possible, and they wouldn't be here either if they didn't think peace was possible," Bush said Wednesday at the White House, as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stood quietly beside him.

"One thing I've assured both gentlemen is that the United States will be actively engaged in the process.… We will use our power to help you as you come up with the necessary decisions to lay out a Palestinian state that will live side-by-side in peace with Israel," the U.S. president vowed.

The two sides agreed to launch serious and continuous negotiations to finalize a peace deal before Bush's mandate expires in January 2009, a deadline that many Arabs and Israelis dismiss as virtually impossible to meet in light of enormous differences between the two sides on core issues and what the Arabs see as new preconditions raised by Israel.

The Palestinian issue, which particularly includes the establishment of a Palestinian state, was the central reason that an unprecedented number of Arab states - 16 in all - participated in a conference that included Israel. If the Palestinian question is resolved, the Arab conflict with Israel would automatically be resolved as well.

While the Arabs had hoped that the revived Saudi-sponsored peace initiative would constitute a framework for the process, it was hardly mentioned at the conference, raising Arab suspicions that Israel was overly concerned with normalizing ties with the Arabs and its own security rather than with making real peace.

The Arab initiative promised Israel full relations in return for its withdrawal from all the territories it has occupied since June 1967, the establishment of a Palestinian state there with East Jerusalem as its capital, and resolving the fate of some 5 million Palestinian refugees.

Nevertheless, the 22-member Arab League – of which only Egypt and Jordan have peace treaties with Israel – cautiously welcomed the re-launch of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, saying it will monitor Israel's intentions in the next two months.

"We want to give this opportunity a chance," Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said. "During the next two months we will test the Israelis' intentions to see if they are serious, or if this is just another game."

Arab hopes for a successful conference were dashed when Olmert met critics' expectations that he would exploit the meeting to seek normal ties with the Arabs without ending the Israeli occupation.

Careful not to further anger their historically anti-Israeli publics, Official Arab statements during and after Annapolis have stressed their refusal to normalize ties with Israel before the Palestinians establish their state. Saudi Arabian foreign minister Saud al-Faisal, taking part for the first time in a public meeting with Israel, repeatedly assured this would not happen.

Egypt's pro-government newspapers took a similar line. "Olmert is seeking to quickly harvest the fruit of normalization with the Arabs, Muslims, and their cause, all at once so that [normalization] does not commit it to anything, so long as it received the reward in advance," Al-Gomhuria daily wrote in its editorial Thursday.

"Israel wants Arab and Muslim recognition of a Jewish state, with the support of the U.S. president who called on the Palestinian president and 16 Arab ministers in Annapolis to recognize Israel as the national homeland for the Jewish people," the daily complained.

Arab diplomats told the Middle East Times that Olmert had added a new precondition for negotiations: they they must accept that Israel is a "Jewish homeland." Knowing that Palestinians and Arabs would not agree to this indicates to the diplomats that the Israeli leader is not sincere in making real peace, but instead was "maneuvering" to avoid ending the 40-year-old Israeli occupation.

Adel al-Jubair, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington, said in comments published in Saudi papers Thursday that Palestinians and Arabs "cannot accept discussions of a Jewish identity for Israel when there are 1.5 million Palestinians living inside Israel. And we cannot accept a state based on religion."