Media pass mystery at talks

Breaking news! I no longer work for CNN, I'm no longer a reporter, in fact, I'm no longer Ben Wedeman. Well, at least that's according to the Egyptian Director of the Central Administration of Security at the Sharm el-Sheikh peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel.

He (or she, I suppose, since I don't know the name) issued me credentials as David Hawley, changed me into a cameraman, and assigned me a new employer: Bahraini TV.

David Hawley is my good friend and colleague, CNN's Jerusalem good-natured Australian cameraman. David's or my affiliation with Bahraini television remains a mystery.

Anyone who has ever covered a summit or conference in Sharm Al-Shaikh knows they are disorganized affairs where no one really knows what is happening until the last moment, and that’s for the lucky ones.

Getting anywhere near the summit proceedings involves passing though a variety of over-staffed checkpoints manned by a crowd of conscripts and surly officers, followed by a cordon of over-sensitive metal detectors set off by the iron in your blood. One thing no one has paid attention to, however, is my dodgy press card.

The disorder and heavy handedness of Sharm summits often detract from the substance of the talks.

But it’s hard to tell at this stage whether there is any substance to speak of. On September 2, Israel and the Palestinians (well, part of them, since only the Ramallah regime is represented here) resumed direct negotiations in Washington, D.C. at the urging of the United States.

Skeptics far outnumber optimists, and the latter are not wildly so.

In the lobby of the hotel where the talks are due to begin Tuesday morning, I ran into Husam Zaki, the spokesmen for the Egyptian foreign minister.

"We have to be optimists," he told me with a wry grin. "But we know these talks are going to be long and hard."

There is plenty of ground Israeli and Palestinian negotiators will have to cover. The future of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes. Borders. Security. Water resources. The nature of the nascent Palestinian state.

These are thorny subjects that have been discussed, and dodged, for almost 20 years, and no one is under any illusion that dramatic progress will be achieved here in this sunny Egyptian resort on the Red Sea.

They could start, however, by giving me back my name, my job and returning me to CNN.

Source: CNN