By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Stirring televised speeches from Annapolis on Tuesday about the need for peace had limited resonance among Israelis and Palestinians with memories of failed summits that led to more bloodshed. Though it was hardliners on both sides who came out against Tuesday's resolution by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to renew negotiations, reservations were not far from the minds of moderates. "What we need is less talk and more action. Only history can judge whether this conference will bring peace," said Dedi Cohen, 32, a lawyer in Israel's coastal metropolis Tel Aviv.

Noting Abbas's truncated authority since the June civil war in which Hamas Islamists took over the Gaza Strip, Cohen said: "The Palestinians are so torn up from within that I don't know who to believe any more."

In Gaza, Hamas held mass rallies that vowed to block any accord on permanent coexistence with the Jewish state. Similar protests in the West Bank, where Abbas still holds sway, were forcibly quelled by Palestinian police. One demonstrator died.

For Tareq Dahnous, a 26-year-old salesman from the West Bank city of Hebron, the main problem remains Israeli occupation, despite Olmert's hints at major territorial handovers to Abbas.

"This is a failed meeting," was Dahnous's prediction on Annapolis. "I wish I had an independent state, but it is difficult to achieve."

In Ramallah, Abbas's administrative centre, 35-year-old Raed Fayz praised Abbas because he "didn't make compromises on any final issues" in his Annapolis address.

Abbas and Olmert spoke in their native languages, Arabic and Hebrew, a departure from the English favoured at past summits. For some, that implied their main goal was to win over sceptics at home.

DIVISIONS

Disagreement over how to tackle core issues of borders, refugees and Jerusalem divided Olmert and Abbas. Within the Israeli and Palestinian societies, they form the battle lines between ultranationalists and those seeking a two-state accord.

The Yesha council of Jewish settlers, which tried and failed to scupper Israel's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, held demonstrations in Jerusalem denouncing Olmert for his willingness to cede biblical West Bank land to the Palestinians.

Despite U.S. President George W. Bush's endorsement, at Annapolis, of Israel's drive to remain a "Jewish homeland", Yesha leader Danny Dayan accused the peace conference's host of seeking a way of salvaging his legacy after the Iraqi war. "The transparent attempt to complete negotiations within a timeframe that will allow George Bush to get the Nobel Peace Prize will lead to a catastrophe," Dayan said.

Israeli Arab lawmaker Ahmed Tibi, a long-time adviser to Palestinian leaders, dismissed such hawkish talk.

"The Israeli right wing has nothing to worry about yet, because nothing has yet been agreed on the actual creation of the Palestinian state," Tibi said.

A poll commissioned by Israel's Channel One television found 62 percent of Jewish citizens expected Annapolis to lead to further stalemate and an escalation of fighting with the Palestinians. Fifteen percent predicted a breakthrough in talks.

Suspicion of Bush was shared by Abu Abed Abu Karsh, a Gaza shopowner: "All he wants to achieve in the conference is normalisation between Israel and the Arab world while forfeiting the Palestinian cause."

Analysts and diplomats have speculated that another aim of Annapolis was for Israel and Sunni Arabs to close ranks against non-Arab Iran and its nuclear programme, which has set off regional jitters.

"The problem is not Abbas but Hamas and Iran, and both of them are not in Annapolis (so) I don't know how this can help us," said Eli Shani, a resident of the coastal Israeli town of Netanya. (Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, Ali Sawafta in Ramallah, Haitham Tamimi in Hebron and Joseph Nasr in Jerusalem; Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Robert Woodward)

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