Syrian strongman Bashar Assad confounded some Israelis' hopes that he would sit next to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert or perhaps even talk to him in the Paris Mediterranean Union summit. Assad walked out of the auditorium before Olmert's speech at the Union of the Mediterranean summit in Paris. The two did not shake hands and sat at a distance from each other.
Earlier in the day, Olmert used Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to relay a message to Assad. Olmert's spokesman Mark Regev said that the Prime Minister asked Erdogan to tell Assad that he was "completely serious about the progress in the contacts with Syria." Erdogan later met with Assad.
Et tu, Tzipi?
Assad was not the only one giving Olmert the cold shoulder in Paris: Olmert's own foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, reportedly did not speak to Olmert on the flight to Paris and even sat at a distance from him when they were received by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Livni hinted Sunday that she believed Olmert was on his way out of the Prime Minister's Office. Asked by reporters at the summit if she agreed with Olmert's claim that the law enforcement branches had gone too far in their handling of accusations against him, Livni stated: "I did not need the latest scandal to determine m
Livni did not speak to Olmert on the flight to Paris and even sat at a distance from him when they were received by Sarkozy. 
y position. As you know, we have begun to operate and the change has begun," she added.
"Peace closer than ever"
Olmert put a brave face on matters despite the investigations which threaten to put and end to his premiership, and stated at a joint news conference with Sarkozy and PA-Fatah chairman Mahmoud Abbas: "It seems to me that we have never been as close to the possibility of reaching an accord as we are today."
"It seems that we have reached the time when the Palestinian authorities and the Israelis have to take serious and important decisions that will finally take us to where we have never been before," Olmert added.
Sarkozy taking "huge risk"
Sarkozy has high hopes for the summit as a means of improving Israeli-Arab relations, according to experts who spoke with JTA. “This conference is fascinating,” said French Jewish sociologist and historian Jacques Tarnero. “I think Sarkozy wants to use the Mediterranean union to have Israel accepted by its Arab neighbors.”
“He’s taking a huge risk,” he added. “There is a minimum that Arab states along the Mediterranean need to accept in this project, and that minimum is Israel. But I’m not sure the Arabs want to play along.”
Olivier Roy, a Middle East studies expert at the Study Center for International Research in Paris, said bringing together dictatorships with democracies is risky. “A concession shows weakness if nothing happens as a result,” he explained. “You can’t ignore the conflict between these countries.”
Among the projects proposed at the summit are ones focusing on the shortage of drinking water in the region and the creation of a Mediterranean version of the European student exchange program, Erasmus.