Pro-Israel Group Slams Rice Meeting With Syrian FM
By Julie Stahl
CNSNews.com Jerusalem Bureau Chief
May 03, 2007
Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - In a move criticized by a pro-Israel U.S. organization, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with her Syrian counterpart on Thursday, possibly signaling a shift in Bush administration policy towards a country designated by the State Department as a sponsor of terror.
Rice met with Foreign Minister Walid Muallem on the sidelines of a two-day conference in Egypt intended to discuss the future of Iraq. It's the first meeting between such senior American and Syrian officials in several years.
The U.S. has maintained a policy of economic and political isolation toward Syria since it withdrew its ambassador from Damascus in February 2005 following reports alleging Syrian involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who opposed Syrian domination of his country.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) recently challenged that policy when she met with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus. Other U.S. lawmakers have traveled to Syria in recent times, but Pelosi was the most senior to do so.
President Bush last December rejected a recommendation by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group - co-chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker and former U.S. Congressman Lee Hamilton - to engage Syria and Iran as part of the plan to bring calm to Iraq.
Experts said at the time that Syria and Iran would extract a price from the U.S. for their cooperation in Iraq, with some predicting that Syria would demand that the international community back off in its pursuit of the Hariri assassins. An international investigation has implicated senior Syrian officials in the killing.
Analysts also said the U.S. would likely push Israel to return the strategic Golan Heights, captured from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War - another Baker-Hamilton recommendation.
"We think this is a serious mistake," Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, said of the U.S.-Syria meeting.
"When the U.S. meets with an official of a state on the U.S. list of terrorist countries, we simply legitimize their terrorist actions and send the message that we are not holding them strongly accountable for their actions," Klein told Cybercast News Service by telephone.
Until the Syrians close down the 10 terrorist groups with offices in Damascus and stop facilitating the transfer of weapons from Iran to Hizballah, the U.S. should be "isolating them and not embracing them," said Klein.
Among the groups hosted by Syria are the Palestinian factions Hamas and Islamic Jihad, responsible for the deaths and injuries of hundreds of Israelis - and some Americans - in suicide bombings and terrorist attacks since 1994.
In 2003, Syrian President Bashar Assad flatly refused a U.S. request to shut down the headquarters of Palestinian terrorist organizations in Damascus. Assad said they were merely public relations offices.
Klein called the meeting between Rice and Muallem "especially troubling" in light of the fact that the Bush administration sharply condemned the Pelosi-Assad meeting last month. "It makes a mockery of the criticism," he said.
Klein said the meeting made no sense, but he speculated that Washington may be hoping to deflect anti-American criticism in the Muslim world by meeting with a senior Syrian official.
Klein said he worried that the meeting may signal the beginning of a new U.S. push on Israel to surrender the Golan Heights.
The Republican Jewish Coalition, which was highly critical of Pelosi's visit to Damascus and launched an ad campaign against it, said Thursday it would not comment on the Rice-Muallem meeting.
The pro-Israel lobby AIPAC also had no immediate comment on the meeting.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said ahead of the meeting that it would focus "exclusively on issues related to Iraq." The U.S. accuses Syria of allowing insurgents to cross its border into Iraq to fight allied troops.
An Israeli government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was no "direct correlation" between the Rice-Muallem meeting and Israel.
"This has nothing to do with us," she said. "The Americans have a serious problem in Iraq. They have to find a policy that works in Iraq."
Rice also spoke with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, although McCormack played down the encounter: "They said hello, that's about it."
The meeting on Iraq opened Thursday in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, with a plea from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for countries to forgive his country's debt to facilitate its reconstruction program.
Iraqi foreign debts are estimated at some $50 billion, according to reports. The Paris Club of lender nations has already written off another $100 billion.
Earlier al-Maliki was quoted as telling Rice that "a rapprochement" needed to take place between the U.S. and regional players, especially Syria and Iran, in order to solve the issue of Iraq.
"All of us here today are bound to the future of Iraq. What happens in Iraq has profound consequences which will affect each and every one of us," Rice said in a speech at the conference.
Showing posts with label Condoleezza Rice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Condoleezza Rice. Show all posts
Friday, May 4, 2007
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Top Bush official admits hooker link, resigns
Rice Deputy Quits After Query Over Escort Service
Randall Tobias Oversaw U.S. Foreign Aid Programs
Randall Tobias Oversaw U.S. Foreign Aid Programs
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 28, 2007; A01
Randall L. Tobias, the deputy secretary of state responsible for U.S. foreign aid, abruptly resigned yesterday after he was asked about an upscale escort service allegedly involved in prostitution, U.S. government sources said.
Tobias resigned after ABC News contacted him with questions about the escort service, the sources said. ABC News released a statement last night saying Tobias acknowledged Thursday that he had used the service to provide massages, not sex.
Tobias has been Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's point man in an ambitious effort to overhaul how the U.S. government manages foreign aid, a key part of her "transformational diplomacy" agenda. Just two days ago, President Bush lauded Tobias for his work in the administration leading "America's monumental effort to confront and deal with the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the continent of Africa."
In an unusual statement issued at 5 p.m., State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Tobias informed Rice "today that he must step down as Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator effective immediately. He is returning to private life for personal reasons."
Contacted last night at his home in the District, Tobias, a former chief executive of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Co., declined to discuss the circumstances of his resignation, saying he would "stick with the statement the State Department released today."
According to ABC News, Tobias said he contacted the escort service "to have gals come over to the condo to give me a massage" and that there had been "no sex" involved.
In a memo yesterday to the USAID staff, James R. Kunder, acting deputy USAID administrator, called the resignation "shocking news" and urged workers not to be "distracted from our developmental and emergency work."
Within minutes of McCormack's announcement, Tobias's biography was removed from the USAID Web site.
State Department officials declined to comment further on the reasons for Tobias's resignation.
"I'm sad today," said one person close to Tobias. "The president loves him and Condi absolutely loves him."
White House officials said Rice briefed Bush on the matter early yesterday before he met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The president "was saddened and disappointed and wished Dr. Tobias and his family well," spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who operated the escort service, was indicted on federal racketeering charges in February and has threatened to expose her high-profile client list.
Palfrey has contended that her escort service provided clients with college-educated women who engaged in legal, sexual game-playing for $275 per 90-minute session in their homes or hotel rooms. Prosecutors allege she ran a prostitution ring.
Palfrey's attorney, Montgomery Blair Sibley, said yesterday that he has been contacted in the past few days by five lawyers asking whether their client's phone numbers are on Palfrey's list of 10,000 to 15,000 customers from 2002 to 2006. Some have also asked about whether an accommodation can be made to avoid identifying their clients, which Sibley said he is not able to promise. ABC's "20/20" is mining that database of phone numbers, Sibley said, for a news report on the more notable of Palfrey's customers.
"I presume '20/20' crews running around with cameras has led to this flurry of activity," Sibley said. "That may cause some people to worry."
ABC reporters interviewed Palfrey last week, Sibley said, and asked her about specific customers by name. Sibley declined to identity them or speculate about Palfrey's clients whose identities may be revealed in coming days. He said that in many cases, he and Palfrey did not have the investigative resources to identify them from their phone numbers, but that ABC did.
ABC is grappling with the question of whether to air a report or identify some of those on the list. "We can't comment on ongoing reporting," ABC News spokesman Jeffrey Schneider said.
After a long career in the corporate world, including stints not only at Eli Lilly but also as AT&T vice chairman, Tobias joined the administration in 2003 to be the first global AIDS coordinator, with the rank of ambassador. He was responsible for a start-up program designed to spend $15 billion over five years, with the largest share going to 12 African and two Caribbean countries that account for roughly half the world population with HIV/AIDS.
Last year, Rice tapped Tobias to be the first director of U.S. foreign assistance, with the rank of deputy secretary, giving him the task of both running USAID and coordinating all foreign aid so that the delivery of aid would more closely follow the administration's policy goals. Under Tobias, for the first time, the State Department produced documents showing exactly how much aid was going to each country. He has proven so essential to Rice's plans that she had refused to let him leave even though officials said he had wanted to resign from the high-pressure job for at least six months.
The ambitious effort has been controversial on Capitol Hill, where Tobias's style and performance have come under attack. At a hearing last month, Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, accused Tobias of "tycoonitis," which he described as "people who come from the top of the corporate ladder who consider congressional suggestions, requests for information and participation in decision-making as intruding on their turf."
Staff writers Michael Abramowitz, John Solomon, Carol D. Leonnig, Howard Kurtz and Martin Weil and researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
More Like an Air Ball: MAUREEN DOWD - Tenet
THE COMPLETE ARTICLE
THE NEW YORK TIMES
OP-ED COLUMNIST
THE NEW YORK TIMES
OP-ED COLUMNIST
More Like an Air Ball
By MAUREEN DOWDPublished: April 28, 2007
Slam-Dunk, a k a George Tenet, shows us his tender side, a sniveling C.I.A. chief bullied by “remote” Condi.
Poor Slam-Dunk.
Not since Madame Butterfly has anyone been so cruelly misunderstood and misused. Slam-Dunk says that when he pantingly told the president that fetching information on Saddam’s W.M.D. would be a cinch, he did not mean let’s go to war.
No matter how eager Slam-Dunk was to tell W. what he wanted to hear while polishing W.’s shoes, that intelligence they craved did not exist. “Let me say it again: C.I.A. found absolutely no linkage between Saddam and 9/11,” the ex-Head Spook writes in his new book, self-effacingly titled “At the Center of the Storm.” Besides, Junior and Darth had already decided to go to war to show the Arabs their moxie.
The president and vice president wanted Slam-Dunk to help them dramatize the phony case. Everyone had to pitch in! That Saturday session in December 2002 in the Oval Office was “essentially a marketing meeting,” Slam-Dunk writes, just for “sharpening the arguments.”
Hey, I feel better.
Slam-Dunk always presented himself as the ultimate guy’s guy, a cigar-chomping spymaster who swapped jokes with the president. But now he shows us his tender side, a sniveling C.I.A. chief bullied by “remote” Condi. . .
. . . If you worry about your own survival more than your country’s, you might end up as the whiny fall guy.
More Like an Air Ball: MAUREEN DOWD - Tenet
THE COMPLETE ARTICLE
THE NEW YORK TIMES
OP-ED COLUMNIST
THE NEW YORK TIMES
OP-ED COLUMNIST
More Like an Air Ball
By MAUREEN DOWDPublished: April 28, 2007
Slam-Dunk, a k a George Tenet, shows us his tender side, a sniveling C.I.A. chief bullied by “remote” Condi.
Poor Slam-Dunk.
Not since Madame Butterfly has anyone been so cruelly misunderstood and misused. Slam-Dunk says that when he pantingly told the president that fetching information on Saddam’s W.M.D. would be a cinch, he did not mean let’s go to war.
No matter how eager Slam-Dunk was to tell W. what he wanted to hear while polishing W.’s shoes, that intelligence they craved did not exist. “Let me say it again: C.I.A. found absolutely no linkage between Saddam and 9/11,” the ex-Head Spook writes in his new book, self-effacingly titled “At the Center of the Storm.” Besides, Junior and Darth had already decided to go to war to show the Arabs their moxie.
The president and vice president wanted Slam-Dunk to help them dramatize the phony case. Everyone had to pitch in! That Saturday session in December 2002 in the Oval Office was “essentially a marketing meeting,” Slam-Dunk writes, just for “sharpening the arguments.”
Hey, I feel better.
Slam-Dunk always presented himself as the ultimate guy’s guy, a cigar-chomping spymaster who swapped jokes with the president. But now he shows us his tender side, a sniveling C.I.A. chief bullied by “remote” Condi. . .
. . . If you worry about your own survival more than your country’s, you might end up as the whiny fall guy.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
House Panel Votes to Subpoena Condoleezza Rice
Wednesday, April 25, 2007 1:21 p.m. EDT
In rapid succession, congressional committees Wednesday ramped up their investigations of the Bush administration by approving a subpoena for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and granting immunity to a key aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
By 21-10, the House oversight committee voted to issue a subpoena to Rice to compel her story on the Bush administration's claim, now discredited, that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa.
Moments earlier in the committee chamber next door, the House Judiciary Committee voted 32-6 to grant immunity to Monica Goodling, Gonzales' White House liaison, for her testimony on why the administration fired eight federal prosecutors. The panel also unanimously approved - but did not issue - a subpoena to compel her to appear.
Simultaneously across Capitol Hill, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved - but did not issue - a subpoena on the prosecutors' matter to Sara Taylor, deputy to presidential adviser Karl Rove.
And in case Gonzales thought the worst had passed with his punishing testimony last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the chairman and top Republican issued a new demand: Refresh the memory that Gonzales claimed had failed him 71 times during the seven-hour session.
"Provide the answers to the questions you could not recall last Thursday," Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and ranking Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, wrote to Gonzales on Wednesday.
© 2007 Associated Press.
In rapid succession, congressional committees Wednesday ramped up their investigations of the Bush administration by approving a subpoena for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and granting immunity to a key aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
By 21-10, the House oversight committee voted to issue a subpoena to Rice to compel her story on the Bush administration's claim, now discredited, that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa.
Moments earlier in the committee chamber next door, the House Judiciary Committee voted 32-6 to grant immunity to Monica Goodling, Gonzales' White House liaison, for her testimony on why the administration fired eight federal prosecutors. The panel also unanimously approved - but did not issue - a subpoena to compel her to appear.
Simultaneously across Capitol Hill, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved - but did not issue - a subpoena on the prosecutors' matter to Sara Taylor, deputy to presidential adviser Karl Rove.
And in case Gonzales thought the worst had passed with his punishing testimony last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the chairman and top Republican issued a new demand: Refresh the memory that Gonzales claimed had failed him 71 times during the seven-hour session.
"Provide the answers to the questions you could not recall last Thursday," Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and ranking Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, wrote to Gonzales on Wednesday.
© 2007 Associated Press.
House panel approves subpoena for Rice
House panel gives Gonzales aide immunity
WASHINGTON (AP) — A House committee voted Wednesday to grant immunity to Monica Goodling, a key aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales during the firings of eight U.S. attorneys. She had refused to testify, invoking her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.
The 32-6 vote by the House Judiciary Committee surpassed the 2/3 majority required to grant a witness immunity from prosecution. A separate vote to authorize a subpoena for Goodling passed by voice vote.
Democrats said the votes were necessary tools to force into the open the story of why the prosecutors were fired and whether they were singled out to influence corruption cases.
The votes instruct a House lawyer to seek an immunity grant from a federal court. The grant would not take effect unless Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., chooses to issue Goodling a subpoena compelling her to testify, Conyers said.
Goodling and her lawyer have invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, saying they believe Democrats have set a perjury trap for her. Conyers said Wednesday he hopes Goodling changes her mind and voluntarily tells the committee her story.
"I do not propose this step lightly," Conyers told the panel. "If we learn something new in the course of our investigation ... we can always stop the process s before the court issues an order."
Congressional Democrats investigating the Bush administration set rapid-fire votes in three committees Wednesday on subpoenas.
"If we are stonewalled then we can't hesitate to call on the powers available to us," said House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif.
Those powers include the threat of subpoenas to prod the administration into answering questions on a raft of issues, including the firings of eight U.S. attorneys and President Bush's suggestion, now discredited, that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa.
Chief among the targets is Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whose aides have insisted she has answered questions repeatedly before Congress and in the media about Bush's statement on uranium.
"We have hit a brick wall with the secretary of state," Waxman announced Wednesday. Rice, he said, "is giving us no choice but to proceed with a subpoena."
He postponed a vote on issuing a subpoena to former White House chief of staff Andrew Card on the same issue, saying White House Counsel Fred Fielding had make a compromise proposal worth pursuing.
Still, Republicans dismissed the subpoenas as political fishing expeditions by zealous majority Democrats eager to assert their newly won oversight power.
Rep. Tom Davis of Virgina, top Republican on Waxman's committee, called the Rice subpoena duplicative and evidence of a witchhunt. Though the uranium claim was false, Rice already has explained that she believed it to be true at the time.
Waxman's questions to her "have been asked and answered," Davis said.
"Subpoenaing Secretary Rice has more to do with political theater than legitimate oversight goals," said House Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.
The barrage of subpoenas is an example of the Democrats' newfound power and the plethora of White House business from which they have to choose after six years of a Republican majority that did virtually no executive branch oversight.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A House committee voted Wednesday to grant immunity to Monica Goodling, a key aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales during the firings of eight U.S. attorneys. She had refused to testify, invoking her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.
The 32-6 vote by the House Judiciary Committee surpassed the 2/3 majority required to grant a witness immunity from prosecution. A separate vote to authorize a subpoena for Goodling passed by voice vote.
Democrats said the votes were necessary tools to force into the open the story of why the prosecutors were fired and whether they were singled out to influence corruption cases.
The votes instruct a House lawyer to seek an immunity grant from a federal court. The grant would not take effect unless Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., chooses to issue Goodling a subpoena compelling her to testify, Conyers said.
Goodling and her lawyer have invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, saying they believe Democrats have set a perjury trap for her. Conyers said Wednesday he hopes Goodling changes her mind and voluntarily tells the committee her story.
"I do not propose this step lightly," Conyers told the panel. "If we learn something new in the course of our investigation ... we can always stop the process s before the court issues an order."
Congressional Democrats investigating the Bush administration set rapid-fire votes in three committees Wednesday on subpoenas.
"If we are stonewalled then we can't hesitate to call on the powers available to us," said House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif.
Those powers include the threat of subpoenas to prod the administration into answering questions on a raft of issues, including the firings of eight U.S. attorneys and President Bush's suggestion, now discredited, that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa.
Chief among the targets is Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whose aides have insisted she has answered questions repeatedly before Congress and in the media about Bush's statement on uranium.
"We have hit a brick wall with the secretary of state," Waxman announced Wednesday. Rice, he said, "is giving us no choice but to proceed with a subpoena."
He postponed a vote on issuing a subpoena to former White House chief of staff Andrew Card on the same issue, saying White House Counsel Fred Fielding had make a compromise proposal worth pursuing.
Still, Republicans dismissed the subpoenas as political fishing expeditions by zealous majority Democrats eager to assert their newly won oversight power.
Rep. Tom Davis of Virgina, top Republican on Waxman's committee, called the Rice subpoena duplicative and evidence of a witchhunt. Though the uranium claim was false, Rice already has explained that she believed it to be true at the time.
Waxman's questions to her "have been asked and answered," Davis said.
"Subpoenaing Secretary Rice has more to do with political theater than legitimate oversight goals," said House Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.
The barrage of subpoenas is an example of the Democrats' newfound power and the plethora of White House business from which they have to choose after six years of a Republican majority that did virtually no executive branch oversight.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Why Rice will fail in the Middle East
UPDATE - April 15, 2007 - Editor's note: I am posting at the secondary blog(also see Friday's articles at the overflow blog).
---
Published: 09/04/2007 12:00 AM (UAE)
By Adel Safty, Special to Gulf News
By her own recent admission, the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East contains no grand ideas and is based on the step by step approach. The step by step strategy is the wrong approach to solving the Palestine conflict. It failed before and is bound to fail again.
Rice's approach is based on the theory that if you achieve enough trust between the belligerent parties you will facilitate substantive negotiations for a final resolution of the conflict.
But the Palestine conflict is no ordinary conflict. From the beginning of the Zionist enterprise to take over Palestine from its inhabitants and turn it into a Jewish country, the Palestine conflict has been an existential one. There was no room in the Zionist project for Palestinian people in the Jewish state.
In fact, the very existence of the Palestinian people was eliminated from Palestine in the imagination of the Zionist propagandists seeking to sell their colonial enterprise to the imperial powers. Their most potent and telling slogan said that the Jewish people wanted to colonise Palestine, "a land without a people for a people without land".
A measure of the audacity of the enterprise is evident when you consider that at the time of this slogan the Arab Palestinians (Muslims and Christians) constituted about 93 per cent of the population of Palestine.
How the Zionist Commission managed, with the help of the occupying British forces, the support of the Western imperial powers, to transform Palestine by force from an Arab country into a Jewish state, is one of the most remarkable stories of the 20th century.
In the process the Palestinian people have been expelled by the hundreds of thousands, dispersed, their homeland lost, their society shattered. Those Palestinians who live under the Israeli occupation are regularly subjected to violence, collective punishment, continued dispersion and dispossession.
The Palestinians have suffered gross injustice and Israel's responsibility for this has been admitted by David Ben Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, in 1956. Various Israeli historians documented it in the past 20 years or so. And yet it is the Palestinians who are being asked to make concessions.
In 1988 they abandoned their plan for a secular state in Palestine for Jews, Muslims and Christians and agreed to accept the establishment of a Palestinian state on roughly half of Palestine. Under the Oslo Agreement, in 1993, they agreed to accept the irreversible loss of 78 per cent of their country to the Israelis and establish a mini-Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, about 22 per cent of their former country.
In fact, under various "peace" plans, the Palestinians continued to lose land and hope while at the same time being subjected to the violence of occupation and pressured into making concessions to the occupier.
Asymmetry of power
And it is this asymmetry of power that is being used by American mediators including Rice, as the defining context for "solving" the conflict. In effect, the victim is being asked to stop resisting the occupation, to protect the symbols of dispossession - the Jewish colonies - to accept punishment if they democratically elect the wrong government, and to be grateful when the daily restrictions on their lives are somewhat eased.
The step by step strategy employed by Kissinger after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war produced the Sinai I and Sinai II disengagement agreements between Israelis and Egyptians. This was in the interest of both parties. The Egyptians wanted to reopen the Suez Canal as a reward for their honourable military performance in the war. The Israelis did not want to be over-stretched militarily after the sobering lesson they received at the hands of the Egyptians. They also received a commitment from Washington not to deal with the Palestine Liberation Organisation, in effect committing Washington to block any peace with the Palestinians.
The dramatic visit by Egyptian president Anwar Sadat to Israel in 1977 helped produce the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement known as the Camp David Agreement in 1978. The Egyptian regained their Sinai, the Israelis removed the most powerful Arab country from the Arab-Israeli conflict and prepared to liquidate Palestinian nationalism once and for all.
This became evident when shortly after the Israelis withdrew from the Sinai in 1982, The Menahem Begin-Ariel Sharon team sent their army into Lebanon in what they hoped would be the final coup to settle the Palestine question by force. They miscalculated - with tragic cost for the Palestinians and the Lebanese.
Clearly the balance of power calculations used by Kissinger in the step by step strategy is utterly unsuitable for the Palestine conflict because of the gross asymmetry of power between the parties, one of which is undeniably a victim the other incontrovertibly a wrongdoer.
What is needed is a clear break with the past; a recognition that the Palestinians have suffered gross injustice and are entitled to reparations and a measure of justice, not as an act of charity and generosity from the occupier but as of right.
And this is what is missing from Rice's small ideas: A vision of peace based on law and justice, not force.
Instead she is focusing on power politics and small steps worthy of her small ideas. Why should the Israelis settle for anything less than what they have achieved by force when Washington is allowing them to flout "peace" plans like the roadmap, build a separation wall, and continue dispossession of the Palestinians?
In his reaction to the renewed Arab League offer of peace on the basis of some justice and some rights for the Palestinians, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmet responded confidently that his government rejected the right of return of even one Palestinian.
Prof Adel Safty is Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Siberian Academy of Public Administration, Novosibirsk, Russia. He is author of "From Camp David to the Gulf".
---
Published: 09/04/2007 12:00 AM (UAE)
By Adel Safty, Special to Gulf News
By her own recent admission, the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East contains no grand ideas and is based on the step by step approach. The step by step strategy is the wrong approach to solving the Palestine conflict. It failed before and is bound to fail again.
Rice's approach is based on the theory that if you achieve enough trust between the belligerent parties you will facilitate substantive negotiations for a final resolution of the conflict.
But the Palestine conflict is no ordinary conflict. From the beginning of the Zionist enterprise to take over Palestine from its inhabitants and turn it into a Jewish country, the Palestine conflict has been an existential one. There was no room in the Zionist project for Palestinian people in the Jewish state.
In fact, the very existence of the Palestinian people was eliminated from Palestine in the imagination of the Zionist propagandists seeking to sell their colonial enterprise to the imperial powers. Their most potent and telling slogan said that the Jewish people wanted to colonise Palestine, "a land without a people for a people without land".
A measure of the audacity of the enterprise is evident when you consider that at the time of this slogan the Arab Palestinians (Muslims and Christians) constituted about 93 per cent of the population of Palestine.
How the Zionist Commission managed, with the help of the occupying British forces, the support of the Western imperial powers, to transform Palestine by force from an Arab country into a Jewish state, is one of the most remarkable stories of the 20th century.
In the process the Palestinian people have been expelled by the hundreds of thousands, dispersed, their homeland lost, their society shattered. Those Palestinians who live under the Israeli occupation are regularly subjected to violence, collective punishment, continued dispersion and dispossession.
The Palestinians have suffered gross injustice and Israel's responsibility for this has been admitted by David Ben Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, in 1956. Various Israeli historians documented it in the past 20 years or so. And yet it is the Palestinians who are being asked to make concessions.
In 1988 they abandoned their plan for a secular state in Palestine for Jews, Muslims and Christians and agreed to accept the establishment of a Palestinian state on roughly half of Palestine. Under the Oslo Agreement, in 1993, they agreed to accept the irreversible loss of 78 per cent of their country to the Israelis and establish a mini-Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, about 22 per cent of their former country.
In fact, under various "peace" plans, the Palestinians continued to lose land and hope while at the same time being subjected to the violence of occupation and pressured into making concessions to the occupier.
Asymmetry of power
And it is this asymmetry of power that is being used by American mediators including Rice, as the defining context for "solving" the conflict. In effect, the victim is being asked to stop resisting the occupation, to protect the symbols of dispossession - the Jewish colonies - to accept punishment if they democratically elect the wrong government, and to be grateful when the daily restrictions on their lives are somewhat eased.
The step by step strategy employed by Kissinger after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war produced the Sinai I and Sinai II disengagement agreements between Israelis and Egyptians. This was in the interest of both parties. The Egyptians wanted to reopen the Suez Canal as a reward for their honourable military performance in the war. The Israelis did not want to be over-stretched militarily after the sobering lesson they received at the hands of the Egyptians. They also received a commitment from Washington not to deal with the Palestine Liberation Organisation, in effect committing Washington to block any peace with the Palestinians.
The dramatic visit by Egyptian president Anwar Sadat to Israel in 1977 helped produce the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement known as the Camp David Agreement in 1978. The Egyptian regained their Sinai, the Israelis removed the most powerful Arab country from the Arab-Israeli conflict and prepared to liquidate Palestinian nationalism once and for all.
This became evident when shortly after the Israelis withdrew from the Sinai in 1982, The Menahem Begin-Ariel Sharon team sent their army into Lebanon in what they hoped would be the final coup to settle the Palestine question by force. They miscalculated - with tragic cost for the Palestinians and the Lebanese.
Clearly the balance of power calculations used by Kissinger in the step by step strategy is utterly unsuitable for the Palestine conflict because of the gross asymmetry of power between the parties, one of which is undeniably a victim the other incontrovertibly a wrongdoer.
What is needed is a clear break with the past; a recognition that the Palestinians have suffered gross injustice and are entitled to reparations and a measure of justice, not as an act of charity and generosity from the occupier but as of right.
And this is what is missing from Rice's small ideas: A vision of peace based on law and justice, not force.
Instead she is focusing on power politics and small steps worthy of her small ideas. Why should the Israelis settle for anything less than what they have achieved by force when Washington is allowing them to flout "peace" plans like the roadmap, build a separation wall, and continue dispossession of the Palestinians?
In his reaction to the renewed Arab League offer of peace on the basis of some justice and some rights for the Palestinians, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmet responded confidently that his government rejected the right of return of even one Palestinian.
Prof Adel Safty is Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Siberian Academy of Public Administration, Novosibirsk, Russia. He is author of "From Camp David to the Gulf".
Friday, April 6, 2007
Tricky little Rice
By Salama A Salama
One's puzzlement over the Arab scene intensifies each time an Arab summit is held. Last week, everyone started talking about the Arab peace initiative. The five-year-old initiative was dusted off and presented as a miracle solution. Suddenly, we are being asked to believe that full normalisation will bring about a complete Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab land. And our leaders are solemnly calling on the Israelis to seize the opportunity. Yet there is only one thing Israel liked about the initiative: normalisation. But the Israelis played along. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, faking concern over tensions in the region, said he was willing to consider anything US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice brings to the table.
For her part, Rice got her moderate Arab friends to present the initiative in a vague manner. For example, they spoke of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem rather than the right of return of refugees. And even as Arab leaders assured us that there has been no change in the initiative, the Israelis were having second thoughts. Rice met twice with Olmert and twice with Abbas and still failed to bring Olmert to discuss the question of a final settlement. The only thing the US diplomat achieved was to get Abbas and Olmert to meet every two weeks. Palestinian officials were quick to point out that nothing was likely to come out of such meetings. Olmert is not even honouring earlier promises on political and security matters.
Rice wasn't straightforward with moderate Arabs. In Aswan, she asked Arab leaders to show some flexibility. She also proposed a meeting between the International Quartet, the Arab Quartet, Israel and Palestine. But Rice has not secured Israel's commitment to start final status negotiations. Rice hasn't even succeeded in getting Israel to implement confidence- building measures approved earlier, such as the release of Palestinian monetary assets and detainees in return for the release of one captured Israeli soldier.
Olmert is refusing to discuss final status issues because, he says, Hamas is refusing to recognise Israel. Despite that, the Arabs left the door open to compromise. They will form working groups to hold international consultations with the UN Security Council, the UN and the International Quartet about the Arab initiative. The Riyadh summit was optimistic that such action would jump- start peace talks.
In short, Rice is trying to get the Arabs to recognise Israel, through normalisation, without a quid pro quo. Rice wants the Arab Quartet to meet the Quartet, then with Israel and Palestine (Syria is not invited), which amounts to an implicit recognition of Israel. But the US diplomat is not asking Israel for anything in return. Israel can build more settlements. It can engage in brutal acts against the Palestinians. And it can voice its opposition to the Arab initiative.
Oddly enough, some Arab countries were optimistic about Rice's tour. Some believed that the US diplomat was trying to fulfil Bush's promise to implement a two-state solution. But all signs indicate that the sudden interest of the US and Israel in the Arab initiative is nothing but a gimmick.
The Arabs may believe that the Arab initiative is still good and alive. But it would be a grave mistake to depend on the International Quartet. The Arab initiative is not going to get us anywhere unless Arab countries provide support to the Palestinian national unity government and make sure that Palestinian factions are not going to turn one against another in the future. The International Quartet is fully under US control. It is nothing more than a warehouse in which the US stores peace initiatives and
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Here comes the flood: Tsunami in Gaza, Celebration of peace in Jerusalem
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
By Gilad Atzmon
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced yesterday the decision of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman, Mahmoud Abbas to meet bi-weekly with the US mediating. Indeed ‘great news for the Palestinians and the Israelis’.
More or less at the same time at least five Palestinians drowned in a “sewage Tsunami” when a water treatment reservoir burst, flooding Umm Naser, a village in the northern Gaza Strip.
While in a peaceful news conference in Jerusalem Rice once again said NO to the democratically elected Hamas referring to the PA chairman as a “partner for peace”, a Bedouin village in Gaza was submerged in sewage.
This devastating picture of total surreal detachment between the two events, between a meaningless political intercourse and a devastating destruction on the ground is the true reality of the Palestinian disaster. This reflects upon the zero Western political leadership’s commitment to humanist and ethical thinking, it reflects upon our abandonment of the Palestinian people, it is a reminder of our general negligence towards people who are mercilessly dispossessed for six decades, our blindness towards what seems to be a suffering with no end and no limit.
Rice called on regional Arab states to “participate actively in the peace process”. She welcomed as well the Saudi peace plan as “an example of such new thinking.” And I end up asking myself when was the last time Rice or the Saudi Crown family had been submerged in Sewage? Rice probably failed to realise that people, who happen to be flooded by ‘treated water’, want something slightly more significant than a mere ‘peace process’. Ms Rice, shouldn’t we better start with food? In case you didn’t realise, your embargo on the Hamas government has led to unprecedented starvation in Gaza. Some 80% of Gaza’s population relies upon WFP’s aid and on that from the UNRWA, the UN agency for refugees.
More or less by the time the US Secretary of State concluded that the two leaders would discuss a “political horizon,” it was clear that dozens of residents of Umm Naser were still unaccounted for.
By late afternoon, receding floodwaters had left a foul-smelling muck. Village children clung to wooden doors floating on the putrid waters. Rescuers were paddling through the village searching for victims. Frantic goats and cows were seen swimming in the mud searching for safe ground.
By the time Rice left the region it was revealed that the ‘negotiations’ between Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas will not include the three core issues - Jerusalem, refugees and borders. How surprising.
Instead of going from Jerusalem to Riyadh, Rice went back to Washington. She realised that she had nothing to offer the Arab leaders summit. She has nothing to offer almost as much as the people of Umm Naser have nothing to lose.
By Gilad Atzmon
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced yesterday the decision of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman, Mahmoud Abbas to meet bi-weekly with the US mediating. Indeed ‘great news for the Palestinians and the Israelis’.
More or less at the same time at least five Palestinians drowned in a “sewage Tsunami” when a water treatment reservoir burst, flooding Umm Naser, a village in the northern Gaza Strip.
While in a peaceful news conference in Jerusalem Rice once again said NO to the democratically elected Hamas referring to the PA chairman as a “partner for peace”, a Bedouin village in Gaza was submerged in sewage.
This devastating picture of total surreal detachment between the two events, between a meaningless political intercourse and a devastating destruction on the ground is the true reality of the Palestinian disaster. This reflects upon the zero Western political leadership’s commitment to humanist and ethical thinking, it reflects upon our abandonment of the Palestinian people, it is a reminder of our general negligence towards people who are mercilessly dispossessed for six decades, our blindness towards what seems to be a suffering with no end and no limit.
Rice called on regional Arab states to “participate actively in the peace process”. She welcomed as well the Saudi peace plan as “an example of such new thinking.” And I end up asking myself when was the last time Rice or the Saudi Crown family had been submerged in Sewage? Rice probably failed to realise that people, who happen to be flooded by ‘treated water’, want something slightly more significant than a mere ‘peace process’. Ms Rice, shouldn’t we better start with food? In case you didn’t realise, your embargo on the Hamas government has led to unprecedented starvation in Gaza. Some 80% of Gaza’s population relies upon WFP’s aid and on that from the UNRWA, the UN agency for refugees.
More or less by the time the US Secretary of State concluded that the two leaders would discuss a “political horizon,” it was clear that dozens of residents of Umm Naser were still unaccounted for.
By late afternoon, receding floodwaters had left a foul-smelling muck. Village children clung to wooden doors floating on the putrid waters. Rescuers were paddling through the village searching for victims. Frantic goats and cows were seen swimming in the mud searching for safe ground.
By the time Rice left the region it was revealed that the ‘negotiations’ between Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas will not include the three core issues - Jerusalem, refugees and borders. How surprising.
Instead of going from Jerusalem to Riyadh, Rice went back to Washington. She realised that she had nothing to offer the Arab leaders summit. She has nothing to offer almost as much as the people of Umm Naser have nothing to lose.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Arab experts cautious over Rice's peace moves
Middle East News
ANALYSIS
By Abdul Jalil Mustafa Mar 25, 2007, 15:03 GMT
Amman - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may be carrying proposals for pushing forward the Arab-Israeli peace process, but governments of the region should avoid 'excessive optimism' as to the outcome of the new US round of diplomacy, Arab politicians and analysts said Sunday.
'We have to avoid excessive optimism regarding what may come out of Rice's new tour,' Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee at Jordan's lower house of parliament, Mohammad Abu Hudaib, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
'However, we do believe that the Arabs can put pressure on the United States to do something at this juncture, because Washington is in a state of crisis in Iraq and, therefore, it needs their help to come out of this plight,' he said.
Abu Hudaib considered Israeli and US attitudes towards the newly- forged Palestinian coalition government as 'non-reassuring.'
He alluded to Israel's avowed refusal to deal with the new Palestinian cabinet and Washington's declaration that it would only deal with the non-Hamas ministers.
The US Secretary of State met on Saturday in the Egyptian city of Aswan with foreign ministers of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, which form the pillars of the so-called moderate Arab camp.
Addressing a press conference earlier Sunday, Rice sidestepped a question about the nature of moves the United States intended to carry out to push forward the Middle East peace process.
But she said it would try to develop a 'common ground' between the Palestinians and Israelis for implementing the quartet's roadmap.
An address delivered by Jordan's King Abdullah II before the US Congress on March 8 appeared to be the catalyst for Rice's new Middle East tour, Arab diplomats said.
The monarch urged the United States to play a 'historic role' toward the conclusion of a Palestinian-Israeli peaceful settlement, warning all parties will be 'at risk' should a solution leading to the setting up of an independent Palestinian state not materialize.
'His Majesty's address was designed to alert the US legislators to the fact that the Palestinian question, which represents the core of all conflicts in the region, should be given priority over the situation in Iraq,' Abu Hudaib said.
The Aswan meeting comes ahead of the Arab summit conference scheduled for Wednesday in Riyadh, where Arab leaders are expected to re-launch the Arab Peace Initiative that was adopted for the first time by the Arab summit in Beirut in 2002.
Israeli leaders have demanded an amendment of the Arab blueprint, and Arab editorialists and commentators expected Rice to exercise pressure on Arab leaders to introduce certain changes into the Arab peace plan at the Riyadh summit.
'I don't believe Arab leaders will accept any pressure to change the Arab initiative,' Abu Hudaib said, citing the 'difficult situation' faced by the US administration due to pressure by the Congress to pull out from Iraq.
The Arab peace plan envisages extending recognition to Israel by all Arab states only after it pulls out from all Arab territories it occupied in the 1967 Six Day War, including East Jerusalem.
Israel however wants to normalize ties with Arab countries before committing itself to any territorial concessions.
Taher Adwan, editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper al-Arab al- Yawm, also indicated his belief that Arab leaders would reject any US pressures to change the Arab initiative.
'Washington used to put pressure on Arab leaders ahead of any new summit, but there are precedents where Arab summits did not respond to such dictations,' he said.
Adwan discerned a 'different US attitude this time, as far as the Palestinian-Israeli peace process is concerned.'
'However, Rice's visit to the region ahead of the Riyadh summit gives the conference added significance and should prompt Arab leaders to adopt strong positions that affect the US agenda and force it to change course in the right direction,' he said.
One of the impressions widely perceived in the Arab world is that the US secretary of state will be seeking support for the West's standoff with Iran over the nuclear issue.
'I cannot exclude this as part of the US manoeuvre, but any prudent politician must come to the conclusion that any war against Iran will be catastrophic for the entire region,' Abu Hudaib said.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
ANALYSIS
By Abdul Jalil Mustafa Mar 25, 2007, 15:03 GMT
Amman - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may be carrying proposals for pushing forward the Arab-Israeli peace process, but governments of the region should avoid 'excessive optimism' as to the outcome of the new US round of diplomacy, Arab politicians and analysts said Sunday.
'We have to avoid excessive optimism regarding what may come out of Rice's new tour,' Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee at Jordan's lower house of parliament, Mohammad Abu Hudaib, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
'However, we do believe that the Arabs can put pressure on the United States to do something at this juncture, because Washington is in a state of crisis in Iraq and, therefore, it needs their help to come out of this plight,' he said.
Abu Hudaib considered Israeli and US attitudes towards the newly- forged Palestinian coalition government as 'non-reassuring.'
He alluded to Israel's avowed refusal to deal with the new Palestinian cabinet and Washington's declaration that it would only deal with the non-Hamas ministers.
The US Secretary of State met on Saturday in the Egyptian city of Aswan with foreign ministers of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, which form the pillars of the so-called moderate Arab camp.
Addressing a press conference earlier Sunday, Rice sidestepped a question about the nature of moves the United States intended to carry out to push forward the Middle East peace process.
But she said it would try to develop a 'common ground' between the Palestinians and Israelis for implementing the quartet's roadmap.
An address delivered by Jordan's King Abdullah II before the US Congress on March 8 appeared to be the catalyst for Rice's new Middle East tour, Arab diplomats said.
The monarch urged the United States to play a 'historic role' toward the conclusion of a Palestinian-Israeli peaceful settlement, warning all parties will be 'at risk' should a solution leading to the setting up of an independent Palestinian state not materialize.
'His Majesty's address was designed to alert the US legislators to the fact that the Palestinian question, which represents the core of all conflicts in the region, should be given priority over the situation in Iraq,' Abu Hudaib said.
The Aswan meeting comes ahead of the Arab summit conference scheduled for Wednesday in Riyadh, where Arab leaders are expected to re-launch the Arab Peace Initiative that was adopted for the first time by the Arab summit in Beirut in 2002.
Israeli leaders have demanded an amendment of the Arab blueprint, and Arab editorialists and commentators expected Rice to exercise pressure on Arab leaders to introduce certain changes into the Arab peace plan at the Riyadh summit.
'I don't believe Arab leaders will accept any pressure to change the Arab initiative,' Abu Hudaib said, citing the 'difficult situation' faced by the US administration due to pressure by the Congress to pull out from Iraq.
The Arab peace plan envisages extending recognition to Israel by all Arab states only after it pulls out from all Arab territories it occupied in the 1967 Six Day War, including East Jerusalem.
Israel however wants to normalize ties with Arab countries before committing itself to any territorial concessions.
Taher Adwan, editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper al-Arab al- Yawm, also indicated his belief that Arab leaders would reject any US pressures to change the Arab initiative.
'Washington used to put pressure on Arab leaders ahead of any new summit, but there are precedents where Arab summits did not respond to such dictations,' he said.
Adwan discerned a 'different US attitude this time, as far as the Palestinian-Israeli peace process is concerned.'
'However, Rice's visit to the region ahead of the Riyadh summit gives the conference added significance and should prompt Arab leaders to adopt strong positions that affect the US agenda and force it to change course in the right direction,' he said.
One of the impressions widely perceived in the Arab world is that the US secretary of state will be seeking support for the West's standoff with Iran over the nuclear issue.
'I cannot exclude this as part of the US manoeuvre, but any prudent politician must come to the conclusion that any war against Iran will be catastrophic for the entire region,' Abu Hudaib said.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Friday, March 16, 2007
Taming Leviathan
Lexington
Mar 15th 2007
From The Economist print edition
These are both the best of times and the worst of times for the American-Jewish lobby
Kevin Kallaugher
THIS week saw yet another reminder of the awesome power of “the lobby”. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) brought more than 6,000 activists to Washington for its annual policy conference. And they proceeded to live up to their critics' darkest fears.
They heard from the four most powerful people on Capitol Hill—Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner from the House, Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell from the Senate—as well as the vice-president (who called his talk “The United States and Israel: United We Stand”) and sundry other power-brokers. Several first-division presidential candidates held receptions.
The display of muscle was almost equalled by the display of unnerving efficiency. There were booths for “congressional check-in”, booths for “delegate banquet troubleshooting”, and booths full of helpful young people. The only discordant note was sounded by a group of a dozen protesters—Orthodox Jews in beards, side-curls and heavy black coats—holding up signs saying “Stop AIPAC”, “Torah forbids Jews dictating foreign policy”, and “Judaism rejects the state of Israel”.
The lobbyists had every reason to feel proud of their work. Congress has more Jewish members than ever before: 30 in the House and a remarkable 13 in the Senate. (There are now more Jews in Congress than Episcopalians.) Both parties are competing with each other to be the “soundest” on Israel. About two-thirds of Americans hold a favourable view of the place.
Yet they have reason to feel a bit nervous, too. The Iraq debacle has produced a fierce backlash against pro-war hawks, of which AIPAC was certainly one. It has also encouraged serious people to ask awkward questions about America's alliance with Israel. And a growing number of people want to push against AIPAC. One pressure group, the Council for the National Interest—run by two retired congressmen, Paul Findley, a Republican, and James Abourezk, a Democrat—even bills itself as the anti-AIPAC. The Leviathan may be mightier than ever, but there are more and more Captain Ahabs trying to get their harpoons in.
Some of the most determined are Arab-Americans, who have been growing in numbers and influence for years—there are probably about 3.5m of them—and who have been in the eye of a political storm since September 11th 2001. They are a growing political force in northern Ohio and Michigan, and their institutions, such as the Arab American Institute and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), have plenty of access to Middle Eastern money.
But so far their performance has been unimpressive. James Zogby has been promising a breakthrough for his Arab American Institute for 20 years. CAIR remains marginal. Arab-Americans are badly split between Christians (63%) and Muslims (24%). They have also been late in taking to politics. Between 1990 and 2004 Arab-Americans donated $788,968 to candidates and parties, compared with $56.8m from pro-Israeli groups.
AIPAC's ace in the hole is the idea that it represents Jewish interests in a country that is generally philo-Semitic. But liberal Jewish groups retort that it represents only a sliver of Jewish opinion. A number of more liberal groups have started to use their political muscle—groups such as the Religious Action Centre of Reform Judaism, Americans for Peace Now and the Israel Policy Forum. These groups scored a significant victory over AIPAC by persuading Congress to water down a particularly uncompromising bit of legislation, the Palestinian Anti-terrorism Act, which would have prevented any American contact with the Palestinian leadership. This accomplishment led to a flurry of speculation that George Soros might try to institutionalise this successful alliance by creating a liberal version of AIPAC.
It has yet to materialise. And it is doubtful whether Mr Soros, a left-wing Democrat who has little sympathy with Israel, would be the best patron for such an organisation. But the growing activism of liberal Jewish groups underlines a worrying fact for AIPAC: most Jews are fairly left-wing. Fully 77% of them think that the Iraq war was a mistake compared with 52% of all Americans. Eighty-seven per cent of Jews voted for the Democrats in 2006, and all but four of the Jews in Congress are Democrats.
Dissenting voices
An even bigger threat to AIPAC comes from the general climate of opinion. It is suddenly becoming possible for serious people—politicians and policymakers as well as academics—to ask hard questions about America's relationship with Israel. Is America pursuing its own interests in the Middle East, or Israel's? Should America tie itself so closely to the Israeli government's policies or should it forge other alliances?
Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former national security adviser, worries that America is seen in the Middle East as “acting increasingly on behalf of Israel”. Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, has compared the situation in Palestine to segregation, and argued that there could “be no greater legacy for America than to help bring into being a Palestinian state”. Philip Zelikow, her former counsellor, argues, in diplomatic language, that the only way to create a viable coalition against terrorists that includes Europeans, moderate Arabs and Israelis, is a “sense that Arab-Israeli issues are being addressed”.
The biggest challenge facing AIPAC is how to deal with this changing climate. Its members have been admirably honest about their mission in life. They boast about passing more than a hundred bits of pro-Israel legislation a year. But they are too willing to close down the debate with explosive charges of anti-Israel bias when people ask whether this is a good thing. America needs an open debate about its role in the Middle East—and AIPAC needs to take a positive role in that debate if it is to remain such a mighty force in American politics.
Related
Inside America's powerful Israel lobby: AIPAC's summit included fiery evangelical oratory, adoration for Dick Cheney
Aipac Judge Orders Open Arguments on Government Proposal:
The defendants, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, were indicted in 2005 on charges that, as lobbyists for Aipac, they passed classified information to an Israeli official and to reporters, violating American espionage law.
The attack on the USS Liberty
How to free the U.S. from AIPAC occupation?
Thursday, March 8, 2007
'What Has Happened to Dick Cheney?'
By Jim Hoagland
Thursday, March 8, 2007; A23
Is the vice president losing his influence, or perhaps his mind? That question, even if it is phrased more delicately, is creeping through foreign ministries and presidential offices abroad and has become a factor in the Bush administration's relations with the world.
"What has happened to Dick Cheney?" That solicitous but direct question came from a European statesman who has known the vice president for many years. He put it to me a few days ago -- even before the discovery of a blood clot in Cheney's leg and the perjury conviction of Scooter Libby, his former chief of staff, brought headline attention to the volatile state of the vice president's physical, emotional and political health.
It is not new for Americans to question whether their leaders have become delusional. Editors at The Post directed reporters to find out if Jimmy Carter had suffered a nervous breakdown when he retreated to Camp David for 10 days in 1979 and abruptly fired five Cabinet officers. Remember the hubbub over Al Haig's "I am in control here" and other Captain Queegish remarks, or Richard Nixon's talking to portraits?
What is unusual is for foreigners to think about a vice president at all and to question what effect the VP's moods and internal policy defeats have on America's standing in the world.
But what goes up must come down. In the first term, Cheney was styled as the most influential vice president in history -- in more lurid versions, an evil puppeteer pulling George W. Bush's strings. So now his irascibility in television interviews triggers diplomatic cables analyzing his equilibrium -- as well as inspiring a booming industry of scathing cartoons and television one-liners here at home.
And it is not over. Reports of a new defeat lie ahead for the hard line on Iran and Syria that is associated with Cheney's office if this week's meeting of ambassadors in Baghdad produces progress on Iraqi stability. Diplomats tell me that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has persuaded Turkey to host a ministerial conference next month that will include Iraq's neighbors, the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and the Group of Eight nations, and that she will attend.
Rice is credited by administration sources with having told Bush in January that he should devote his final two years in office to seeking diplomatic agreements with North Korea and Iran and an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord. That account emphasizes that Rice is not simply outflanking Cheney in intermittent internal policy battles but has won full agreement and support from the president on the strategic goals and methods she and her diplomats are pursuing.
This remains to be confirmed by events. But it is clear that Bush has always been much more the decision maker than the Cheney-as-puppeteer image conveyed. It is not just recently that Bush has failed to follow Cheney's counsel:
On Iraq, Bush overruled Cheney on going to the United Nations for a second use-of-force resolution and then listened much more closely (and disastrously) to policy prescriptions from proconsul L. Paul Bremer and others. On Iran, Cheney came to office with relatively more relaxed attitudes than Bush. Cheney's attitudes may have been formed by his experiences as chief executive of Halliburton, an oil services company that has sought out business contacts with that nation.
There is much to credit in Cheney's frequent protestations that unmitigated loyalty to Bush is more important to their relationship than the policy advice that Cheney gives the president. It is advice that he never discloses to associates in the Cabinet or to the few diplomats he sees.
"It is so mysterious that his recent public hints at discomfort with the new policy directions reverberate with us like muffled cries of outrage," says one ambassador here.
The Libby trial revealed serious splits between Cheney and Bush's political team, led by Karl Rove, who suffered no legal consequences for his role in the scandal. The trial also served as another exercise in showing how Cheney has empowered his critics at home and his foes abroad: His excessive concern for secrecy and control by the executive branch has given new credibility and fundraising ability to the Democrats and to civil liberties organizations here, and it has won sympathy around the world for prisoners who may well be terrorists.
So listen up, diplomats: However beleaguered, Cheney will not resign over the president's refusal to take his advice. The only force that could drive him to that dramatic step would be that unshakable sense of loyalty to Bush, who desperately now needs a vice president in stable physical, emotional and political health. That is the equation you want to be watching.
Saturday, March 3, 2007
The Talented Mr. Cohen
Related
Rice Picks Neo-Con Champion of Iraq War as Counselor
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by Ximena Ortiz
03.02.2007
“You’ve done one heck of a job, Eliot”, is clearly the ascendant sentiment within the Bush Administration regarding Eliot A. Cohen, tapped, according to The Washington Post today, by Secretary Rice to become one of her top advisors. Cohen, after all, is long due for administration commendation—in the Brown-Tenet tradition—after having so tirelessly, and on such very noteworthy basis—agitated for the war in Iraq before that inferno began to so voraciously consume U.S. lives, treasure and geopolitical strength.
There is much that distinguishes Cohen. After the U.S. military had scarcely tipped its toe into Afghanistan, some of a less dogged temperament may have advocated assessing the progression of that war over a period of time. Not Cohen. In a November 20, 2001 Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal, Cohen looked unflinchingly past the horizon—and the brink—advocating not only the Iraq War but also regime change in Iran.
And given Cohen’s tireless advocacy of the Iraq War, some observers may have been tempted to conclude that he would either continue his past support of the war in the face of escalating consequences, or concede an error in backing the war in the first place. Again, not Cohen. This scholar of note demonstrates far greater intellectual dexterity, arriving at an altogether different posture. In a July 10, 2005 Op-Ed in The Washington Post, Cohen poses questions to himself regarding the Iraq War and deigns to provide the reader with his insights.
In that Op-Ed, Cohen professes “Alarm at our continuing failure to promote at wartime speed the colonels and generals who have a talent for fighting it, while also failing to sweep aside those who do not.” He goes on to note his “Incredulity at seeing decorations pinned on the chests and promotions on the shoulders of senior leaders—both civilians and military—who had the helm when things went badly wrong.”
Cohen gets it altogether right on this important point. The administration has seen fit to decorate those with demonstrated incompetence with medals, promotions—even prestigious appointments. Cohen does not see fit to chronicle in that Op-Ed the details and mechanics of that incompetence but his willingness to point it out has won him praise in many corners for candor. (More on this below.)
And Cohen is quite correct that policymakers—and one can even extend the argument to policymakers to be—should be held to account. In this spirit, it seems appropriate to briefly peruse Cohen’s own competence of judgment and foresight.
Flashback to Cohen’s November 2001 Wall Street Journal Op-Ed. In it, he counsels: “the U.S. should continue to target regimes that sponsor terrorism. Iraq is the obvious candidate, having not only helped Al-Qaeda, but attacked Americans directly (including an assassination attempt against the first President Bush) and developed weapons of mass destruction.” Even the Bush-decorated George Tenet—who Cohen presumably makes indirect reference to in his 2005, self-generated Q&A session—stopped short of suggesting Iraq’s hand in the attacks on America.
But perhaps even more remarkable were Cohen’s observations regarding Afghanistan. The “U.S. must mobilize in earnest. The Afghan achievement is remarkable—within two months to have radically altered the balance of power there, to have effectively destroyed the Taliban state and smashed part of the Al Qaeda—is testimony to what the American military and intelligence communities can do when turned on to a problem.” Mission Accomplished, anyone? Indeed, to not only account for a war’s success in just two short months but to also counsel the taking on of another front in that time frame requires a predisposition that is nothing short of remarkable.
And of resounding significance today, given Cohen’s recent appointment, is the position he outlined on Iran in that same Op-Ed piece. Although he advocates the strengthening of civil society in Iran, he upholds regime change as the ultimate goal: “The overthrow of the first theocratic revolutionary Muslim state and its replacement by a moderate or secular government, however, would be no less important a victory in this war than the annihilation of bin Laden.”
Equally as noteworthy as his policy counsel has been the tenor of his punditry. While State Department officials have said they selected Cohen out of a desire for a more open debate, Cohen does not restrain himself by such conventional objectives. In responding to a much-commented opinion paper published last year on the impact of the Israeli lobby on U.S. policy by scholars Stephen M. Walt and John J. Mearsheimer (who is on the advisory council of The National Interest), Cohen did not restrict himself to voicing his rejection of the argument and detailing his thinking for doing so. Again, not Cohen. Instead, he took his criticism in a far more unique direction, accusing both scholars of anti-Semitism.
Regrettably, The Washington Post article today announcing Rice’s selection of Cohen as her incoming counselor—in replacement of Philip D. Zelikow—failed to take a retrospective of Cohen’s past policy recommendations and predictions. Cohen is described, in the headline, as a “Critic of Iraq Policy”, and there is no mention of his past advocacy of the war. Indeed, the article quotes from Cohen’s 2005 Q&A Op-Ed—in which Cohen is more than willing to name the names of the “incompetent”, and point to “cockamamie schemes”, but is altogether more circumspect on what precisely was done wrong and what would have improved matters.
It might have been useful for the Post article to have juxtaposed Cohen’s criticism of the administration’s handling of Iraq with his unqualified argument for the war’s unmistakable necessity, such as his testimony before a House committee in the run-up to the war, in October 2002: “the choice before the United States is a stark one, either to acquiesce in a situation which permits the regime of Saddam Hussein to restore his economy, acquire weapons of mass destruction and pose a lethal threat to his neighbors and to us, or to take action to overthrow him. In my view, the latter course, with all of its risks, is the correct one. Indeed, the dangers of failing to act in the near future are unacceptable.” In billing such a long-time advocate of the Iraq War as a “critic”, The Washington Post has demonstrated a newfound flair for satire—on its news pages.
In Cohen’s 2005 Washington Post Op-Ed, he remarks: “The scholar in me is not surprised when our leaders blunder, although the pundit in me is dismayed when they do." Cohen’s appointment can be taken with similar feeling, a strange convergence of lack of surprise, and dismay. While the reader may detect in the preceding words some hints of sarcasm, Cohen’s appointment is a serious matter. In that aforementioned Wall Street Journal Op-Ed of 2001, Cohen heralds the dawn of WWIV, the Cold War being WWIII. With the rise of more like Cohen in the administration, he may be proven uncharacteristically prescient.
Ximena Ortiz is editor of National Interest online.
Rice Picks Neo-Con Champion of Iraq War as Counselor
---
by Ximena Ortiz
03.02.2007
“You’ve done one heck of a job, Eliot”, is clearly the ascendant sentiment within the Bush Administration regarding Eliot A. Cohen, tapped, according to The Washington Post today, by Secretary Rice to become one of her top advisors. Cohen, after all, is long due for administration commendation—in the Brown-Tenet tradition—after having so tirelessly, and on such very noteworthy basis—agitated for the war in Iraq before that inferno began to so voraciously consume U.S. lives, treasure and geopolitical strength.
There is much that distinguishes Cohen. After the U.S. military had scarcely tipped its toe into Afghanistan, some of a less dogged temperament may have advocated assessing the progression of that war over a period of time. Not Cohen. In a November 20, 2001 Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal, Cohen looked unflinchingly past the horizon—and the brink—advocating not only the Iraq War but also regime change in Iran.
And given Cohen’s tireless advocacy of the Iraq War, some observers may have been tempted to conclude that he would either continue his past support of the war in the face of escalating consequences, or concede an error in backing the war in the first place. Again, not Cohen. This scholar of note demonstrates far greater intellectual dexterity, arriving at an altogether different posture. In a July 10, 2005 Op-Ed in The Washington Post, Cohen poses questions to himself regarding the Iraq War and deigns to provide the reader with his insights.
In that Op-Ed, Cohen professes “Alarm at our continuing failure to promote at wartime speed the colonels and generals who have a talent for fighting it, while also failing to sweep aside those who do not.” He goes on to note his “Incredulity at seeing decorations pinned on the chests and promotions on the shoulders of senior leaders—both civilians and military—who had the helm when things went badly wrong.”
Cohen gets it altogether right on this important point. The administration has seen fit to decorate those with demonstrated incompetence with medals, promotions—even prestigious appointments. Cohen does not see fit to chronicle in that Op-Ed the details and mechanics of that incompetence but his willingness to point it out has won him praise in many corners for candor. (More on this below.)
And Cohen is quite correct that policymakers—and one can even extend the argument to policymakers to be—should be held to account. In this spirit, it seems appropriate to briefly peruse Cohen’s own competence of judgment and foresight.
Flashback to Cohen’s November 2001 Wall Street Journal Op-Ed. In it, he counsels: “the U.S. should continue to target regimes that sponsor terrorism. Iraq is the obvious candidate, having not only helped Al-Qaeda, but attacked Americans directly (including an assassination attempt against the first President Bush) and developed weapons of mass destruction.” Even the Bush-decorated George Tenet—who Cohen presumably makes indirect reference to in his 2005, self-generated Q&A session—stopped short of suggesting Iraq’s hand in the attacks on America.
But perhaps even more remarkable were Cohen’s observations regarding Afghanistan. The “U.S. must mobilize in earnest. The Afghan achievement is remarkable—within two months to have radically altered the balance of power there, to have effectively destroyed the Taliban state and smashed part of the Al Qaeda—is testimony to what the American military and intelligence communities can do when turned on to a problem.” Mission Accomplished, anyone? Indeed, to not only account for a war’s success in just two short months but to also counsel the taking on of another front in that time frame requires a predisposition that is nothing short of remarkable.
And of resounding significance today, given Cohen’s recent appointment, is the position he outlined on Iran in that same Op-Ed piece. Although he advocates the strengthening of civil society in Iran, he upholds regime change as the ultimate goal: “The overthrow of the first theocratic revolutionary Muslim state and its replacement by a moderate or secular government, however, would be no less important a victory in this war than the annihilation of bin Laden.”
Equally as noteworthy as his policy counsel has been the tenor of his punditry. While State Department officials have said they selected Cohen out of a desire for a more open debate, Cohen does not restrain himself by such conventional objectives. In responding to a much-commented opinion paper published last year on the impact of the Israeli lobby on U.S. policy by scholars Stephen M. Walt and John J. Mearsheimer (who is on the advisory council of The National Interest), Cohen did not restrict himself to voicing his rejection of the argument and detailing his thinking for doing so. Again, not Cohen. Instead, he took his criticism in a far more unique direction, accusing both scholars of anti-Semitism.
Regrettably, The Washington Post article today announcing Rice’s selection of Cohen as her incoming counselor—in replacement of Philip D. Zelikow—failed to take a retrospective of Cohen’s past policy recommendations and predictions. Cohen is described, in the headline, as a “Critic of Iraq Policy”, and there is no mention of his past advocacy of the war. Indeed, the article quotes from Cohen’s 2005 Q&A Op-Ed—in which Cohen is more than willing to name the names of the “incompetent”, and point to “cockamamie schemes”, but is altogether more circumspect on what precisely was done wrong and what would have improved matters.
It might have been useful for the Post article to have juxtaposed Cohen’s criticism of the administration’s handling of Iraq with his unqualified argument for the war’s unmistakable necessity, such as his testimony before a House committee in the run-up to the war, in October 2002: “the choice before the United States is a stark one, either to acquiesce in a situation which permits the regime of Saddam Hussein to restore his economy, acquire weapons of mass destruction and pose a lethal threat to his neighbors and to us, or to take action to overthrow him. In my view, the latter course, with all of its risks, is the correct one. Indeed, the dangers of failing to act in the near future are unacceptable.” In billing such a long-time advocate of the Iraq War as a “critic”, The Washington Post has demonstrated a newfound flair for satire—on its news pages.
In Cohen’s 2005 Washington Post Op-Ed, he remarks: “The scholar in me is not surprised when our leaders blunder, although the pundit in me is dismayed when they do." Cohen’s appointment can be taken with similar feeling, a strange convergence of lack of surprise, and dismay. While the reader may detect in the preceding words some hints of sarcasm, Cohen’s appointment is a serious matter. In that aforementioned Wall Street Journal Op-Ed of 2001, Cohen heralds the dawn of WWIV, the Cold War being WWIII. With the rise of more like Cohen in the administration, he may be proven uncharacteristically prescient.
Ximena Ortiz is editor of National Interest online.
Monday, February 19, 2007
The recognition trap
Condoleezza Rice is visiting Jerusalem, but nothing will change until the Quartet drops its demand for Hamas to accept Israel's right to exist.
It better be worth it, I thought to myself, as I waited for my heavily delayed bus to take me into town. The reason for the delay? Condoleezza Rice's latest "babysitting" visit, this time for a three-way summit with Ehud Olmert and Abu Mazen, at the David's Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem.
As the bus finally arrived, I suppressed my hysteria and reminded myself that the meeting would have about as much chance of resurrecting the Middle East peace process as my trilateral pint the previous night with fellow Comment is free bloggers Seth Freedman and Josh Freedman Berthoud.
There are many reasons for the moribund state of Israeli-Palestinian relations at the moment, but the central issue is that of recognition. One of the Quartet's demands for ending the boycott on the Palestinians is that the new government recognise Israel. This is clear enough. De facto recognition is a clear concept in international relations; actors in the international system (state, non-state and quasi-state) only have formal relations with one another once there is mutual recognition. If the Palestinian government refuses to recognise Israel, it cannot expect Israel (and by extension many of Israel's allies) to deal with it.
But it's not that simple. The issue of Palestinian recognition of Israel has been deliberately conflated with another idea - that of Israel's "right to exist". This is an unknown concept in the international system, and seems to have been invented by Israel/America in the 1970s, so as to raise the bar even further in response to tentative steps by the PLO towards acceptance of a two-state solution. Asking the Palestinians to accept the right of Israel to exist is akin to asking them to accept the moral legitimacy of its creation.
The best response to this question has been provided by Noam Chomsky, who was asked if Israel was a legitimate state. In other words, does Israel have a "right to exist"?
I don't think the notion of legitimacy of a state means very much. Is the United States a legitimate state? It's based on genocide; it conquered half of Mexico. What makes it legitimate? The way the international system is set up, states have certain rights; that has nothing to do with their legitimacy.
Every state you can think of is based on violence, repression, expulsion, and all sorts of crimes. And the state system itself has no inherent legitimacy. It's just an institutional form that developed and was imposed with plenty of violence.
The question of legitimacy just doesn't arise. There is an international order in which it is essentially agreed that states have certain rights, but that provides them with no legitimacy, Israel or anyone else.
The demand that the Palestinians recognise Israel is a reasonable one, and it's incredibly frustrating that Hamas has not yet done so. While I understand what brought Hamas to power, it is beyond me why they don't have enough sense of realpolitik to issue some sort of brief statement recognising that the international system contains a state by the name of Israel.
This would truly put the ball in the court of the Israeli government, which has never genuinely acknowledged the right of the Palestinians to a fair and viable state. The reason for this refusal, I fear, lies in the intransigence that goes to the heart of all fundamentalist movements - to recognise Israel would go against Hamas' very raison d'etre. If this is the case, then the Palestinian tragedy looks set to continue.
Either way, though, the demand that Hamas recognise Israel's "right to exist" is an absurd one. Uri Avnery described it in the following way: "Must a Native American recognise the right of the United States of America to exist?"
I do not expect the Palestinians to particularly like the fact that Israel exists. In this I concur with Vladimir Jabotinsky, who acknowledged that Zionism would entail, at least partly, the dispossession of the Palestinians, and who also understood that they did not have to like it in order to accept it.
I am of the belief that sufficient numbers of Palestinians do recognise Israel's existence and are keen to make peace with it. The Iron Wall has worked. Calls for them to go an extra step and accept our "right to exist" are designed in the knowledge that they will not be fulfilled, so as to preclude the possibility of a lasting settlement.
Until this demand is dropped, there will be no progress, no matter how much "babysitting" Condi does.
Alex Stein grew up in London, and went to university at Manchester and Cambridge.
He is a freelance writer and educator based in Jerusalem.
He blogs at www.falsedichotomies.com and can be emailed at alex.stein@talk21.com
Thursday, February 8, 2007
Rice denies receiving olive branch from Iran
They don't call her Condi-lie-za for nothing.
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Related
In 2003, U.S. Spurned Iran's Offer of Dialogue(Note By Same Reporter Below)
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- Glenn Kessler, Washington Post
Thursday, February 8, 2007
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Related
In 2003, U.S. Spurned Iran's Offer of Dialogue(Note By Same Reporter Below)
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- Glenn Kessler, Washington Post
Thursday, February 8, 2007
(02-08) 04:00 PST Washington -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was pressed Wednesday on whether the Bush administration missed an opportunity to improve relations with Iran in 2003, when Tehran issued a proposal calling for a broad dialogue with the United States, including cooperation on nuclear safeguards, action against terrorists and possible recognition of Israel.
Although former administration officials have said the proposal was discussed and ultimately rejected by top U.S. officials, Rice said she never saw it.
"I have read about this so-called proposal from Iran," Rice told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday, referring to reports in the Washington Post and other publications last year. "I think I would have noticed if the Iranians had said, 'We're ready to recognize Israel.' ... I just don't remember ever seeing any such thing."
Rice's comments add a new level of complexity to an issue that has generated debate among foreign-policy experts: Did the Bush administration forego a chance to pursue a dialogue with Iran shortly after the fall of Baghdad, when U.S. power seemed at its height?
The Iranian document, con-veyed to Washington via the Swiss Embassy, listed a series of Iranian aims for potential talks, such as ending sanctions, full access to peaceful nuclear technology, and recognition of its "legitimate security interests," according to a copy that has circulated in Washington and was verified by Iranian and U.S. officials.
Iran agreed to put a series of U.S. aims on the agenda, including full cooperation on nuclear safeguards, "decisive action" against terrorists, coordination in Iraq, ending "material support" for Palestinian militias and accepting a two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The document also laid out an agenda for negotiations, including possible steps to be achieved at a first meeting and the development of road maps on disarmament, terrorism and economic cooperation.
Flynt Leverett, Rice's former staff member, had publicly discussed seeing the proposal when he worked at the White House.
Leverett said Wednesday he became aware of the two-page offer, which came over a fax machine at the State Department, in his waning days in the U.S. government as a senior director at the National Security Council, but that it was not his responsibility to put it on Rice's desk because Rice had placed Elliott Abrams in charge of Middle East policy.
Abrams is currently deputy national security adviser in charge of the Middle East and democracy promotion. A security council spokeswoman, speaking on behalf of Abrams, said Wednesday that Abrams "has no memory of any such fax and never saw or heard of any such thing."
Former State Department officials have said they saw the Iranian offer and used it as a key element in a 2003 memo to Secretary of State Colin Powell proposing that the United States pursue a "grand bargain" with Iran. The Iranian offer was attached to the Powell memo, but Powell did not forward the memo to the White House, officials said.
In June, Rice appeared to confirm the White House received the memo in an interview with National Public Radio. "What the Iranians wanted earlier was to be one-on-one with the United States so that this could be about the United States and Iran," Rice said. State Department officials at the time did not dissuade reporters from interpreting her comments as referring to the 2003 fax.
Page A - 8Sunday, February 4, 2007
Educating Rice
Feb 3, 2007
By Adel Safty
US Secretary of State Condeleza Rice’s recent visit to the Middle East was billed as aimed at shoring up support for Mahmoud Abbas, the embattled President of the Palestinian Authority, and at reviving the moribund Middle East ‘peace process.’
This ‘peace process’ is, officially at least, driven by the plan endorsed by the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations and known as the ‘roadmap’. A fundamental obligation of the roadmap is that Israel stop all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories.
It is a matter of documented evidence that the Israeli leaders have done precisely the opposite: multiplying settlement activities by expanding existing settlements and confiscating ever more Palestinian land for the construction of the separation wall. Instead of dismantling the 20 so-called ‘illegal posts’ in the West Bank as they had promised in 2001, Israeli leaders allowed more posts to be established, now estimated at around 100 ‘illegal posts’, in addition the already existing 150 settlements.
In July 2004, The International Court of Justice found that “the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (including East Jerusalem) have been established in breach of international law.” It also found that the construction of the separation wall was in breach of international law.
A few days before Rice arrived in Israel, and the timing could not have been coincidental, the Israeli government announced the establishment of a new settlement in the occupied West Bank.
Washington responded with the usual slap on the wrist, albeit with unusually strong language for the Bush administration. A spokesman for the State Department said:” “The establishment of a new settlement or the expansion of an existing settlement would violate Israel’s obligations under the road map.” The spokesman then added: ““The U.S. calls on Israel to meet its road map obligations and avoid taking steps that could be viewed as pre-determining the outcome of final-status negotiations,” (NYT. December 28, 07)
In the Middle East, Rice used Kissingerian speak to claim that the war against Hizbollah in Lebanon and the Iraq war had created a unique geopolitical alignment that finally made peace in the Palestine conflict possible. One would be excused to think that Rice came with a bold and courageous approach to finally and seriously tackle the Palestine question.
For example, you would think that if Rice was seriously interested in reviving the moribund Middle East ‘peace process’, the issue of Israel’s continued violations of the roadmap ban on settlement would be an important agenda item in her discussion with Israeli leaders.
One would think that if Rice wanted to bolster Abbas’ standing she would have pressed Israeli leaders to free the Palestinian government officials and legislators the Israeli forces kidnapped and illegally imprisoned. One would think she would ask Israeli leaders to hand over the US$500 million in Palestinian tax revenues they illegally withheld to punish the Palestinians for exercising their democratic right to elect a Hamas government.
Instead, according to the Israeli press, Rice and Olmert repeated the usual condescending platitudes about the need for the occupied, not the occupier, to meet the conditions set by the occupier: recognition of Israel, relinquishing violence, and acceptance of previous agreements with Israel.
As to the fiction of the roadmap, Rice and Olmert were in total agreement: “a Palestinian government would have to abide by the road map.” This is laughable considering that the Israeli leaders never hid their intention to use the roadmap as an excluse to delay and abort the peacee process.
Even the Israeli press recognised that the reference to the roadmap was “Olmert's way of foiling various recent attempts by Europeans and other elements to call for an international peace summit.” (Haarezt, January 16, 07)
President Mahmoud Abbas was aghast and felt betrayed. Instead of being bolstered by the Americans and by Rice’s visit, he felt weakened and more vulnerabl as Hamas’s predictions were being verified by Rice’s preposterous definition of the problem and its solution.
To ask the Palestinians to implement the dead roadmap while the Israelis are busy stealing their land and building settlements, is, as one Abbas’ aid put it, “ a joke.” (Time Magazine, January 14, 06).
Perhaps Abbas should have invested some effort in educating Rice, notoriously ignorant about the Middle East and given to oversimplifications, by giving her a copy the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem’s 2006 annual statistics report.
Rice would then have learned that during 2006, the Israelis killed 660 Palestninans including 141 children, as opposed to 17 Israelis, including one minor, killed by Palestinian actions. In addition, Israeli forces demolished, during the same year, 292 Palestinian houses in the occupied Palestinian territories, in addition to 42 houses in occupied East Jerusalem.
Rice would have learned that the Israelis maintain in the West Bank some 52 permanent checkpoints in addition to hundreds of physical obstacles such as concrete blocs to restrict access to Palestinian communities. At the same time the Jewish settlers enjoy access to some special 41 roadways, while the Palestinians are denied access to these Jews-only roads.
As a frequent praiser of Israel’s vibrant democracy, Rice would have been interested in learning that Israel holds some 9000 Palestninans, including 345 children, in prison, and that of these some 738, including 22 children, are held without trial and without knowing the charges against them.
Rice would also have learned that former President Jimmy Carter’s use of the term Apartheid to describe the Israeli occupation in his recent book Palestine: Peace or Apartheid- and for which he was criticised by the Washington establishment, was not gratuiteous.
The Israeli human rights group reached the same conclusion in the report cited above: “Israel has established in the Occupied Territories a… discrimination regime, in which it maintains two systems of laws, and a person’s rights are based on his or her national origin. This regime is the only one of its kind in the world, and brings to mind dark regimes of the past, such as the Apartheid regime in South Africa. “
President Carter has now concluded that “ Israel will never find peace until it is willing to withdraw from its neighboring occupied territories and permit the Palestinians to exercise their basic human and political rights.” (Washington Post. Jan 18.07)
Had Rice taken the trouble to learn any of these facts, conveniently sanitized from public debate in the United States, she might have learned the need to define the Israeli-Palestine conflict with more fairness and intellectual honesty.
She might have detected the fallacy underlying the usual Israeli strategy of confiscation, dispossession, dispersion and the systematic shattering of the Palestinian society, while blaming the victim for the absence of peace.
Prof. Adel Safty is Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Siberian Academy of Public Administration, Russia. His latest book, Leadership and Democracy, is published in New York.
By Adel Safty
US Secretary of State Condeleza Rice’s recent visit to the Middle East was billed as aimed at shoring up support for Mahmoud Abbas, the embattled President of the Palestinian Authority, and at reviving the moribund Middle East ‘peace process.’
This ‘peace process’ is, officially at least, driven by the plan endorsed by the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations and known as the ‘roadmap’. A fundamental obligation of the roadmap is that Israel stop all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories.
It is a matter of documented evidence that the Israeli leaders have done precisely the opposite: multiplying settlement activities by expanding existing settlements and confiscating ever more Palestinian land for the construction of the separation wall. Instead of dismantling the 20 so-called ‘illegal posts’ in the West Bank as they had promised in 2001, Israeli leaders allowed more posts to be established, now estimated at around 100 ‘illegal posts’, in addition the already existing 150 settlements.
In July 2004, The International Court of Justice found that “the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (including East Jerusalem) have been established in breach of international law.” It also found that the construction of the separation wall was in breach of international law.
A few days before Rice arrived in Israel, and the timing could not have been coincidental, the Israeli government announced the establishment of a new settlement in the occupied West Bank.
Washington responded with the usual slap on the wrist, albeit with unusually strong language for the Bush administration. A spokesman for the State Department said:” “The establishment of a new settlement or the expansion of an existing settlement would violate Israel’s obligations under the road map.” The spokesman then added: ““The U.S. calls on Israel to meet its road map obligations and avoid taking steps that could be viewed as pre-determining the outcome of final-status negotiations,” (NYT. December 28, 07)
In the Middle East, Rice used Kissingerian speak to claim that the war against Hizbollah in Lebanon and the Iraq war had created a unique geopolitical alignment that finally made peace in the Palestine conflict possible. One would be excused to think that Rice came with a bold and courageous approach to finally and seriously tackle the Palestine question.
For example, you would think that if Rice was seriously interested in reviving the moribund Middle East ‘peace process’, the issue of Israel’s continued violations of the roadmap ban on settlement would be an important agenda item in her discussion with Israeli leaders.
One would think that if Rice wanted to bolster Abbas’ standing she would have pressed Israeli leaders to free the Palestinian government officials and legislators the Israeli forces kidnapped and illegally imprisoned. One would think she would ask Israeli leaders to hand over the US$500 million in Palestinian tax revenues they illegally withheld to punish the Palestinians for exercising their democratic right to elect a Hamas government.
Instead, according to the Israeli press, Rice and Olmert repeated the usual condescending platitudes about the need for the occupied, not the occupier, to meet the conditions set by the occupier: recognition of Israel, relinquishing violence, and acceptance of previous agreements with Israel.
As to the fiction of the roadmap, Rice and Olmert were in total agreement: “a Palestinian government would have to abide by the road map.” This is laughable considering that the Israeli leaders never hid their intention to use the roadmap as an excluse to delay and abort the peacee process.
Even the Israeli press recognised that the reference to the roadmap was “Olmert's way of foiling various recent attempts by Europeans and other elements to call for an international peace summit.” (Haarezt, January 16, 07)
President Mahmoud Abbas was aghast and felt betrayed. Instead of being bolstered by the Americans and by Rice’s visit, he felt weakened and more vulnerabl as Hamas’s predictions were being verified by Rice’s preposterous definition of the problem and its solution.
To ask the Palestinians to implement the dead roadmap while the Israelis are busy stealing their land and building settlements, is, as one Abbas’ aid put it, “ a joke.” (Time Magazine, January 14, 06).
Perhaps Abbas should have invested some effort in educating Rice, notoriously ignorant about the Middle East and given to oversimplifications, by giving her a copy the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem’s 2006 annual statistics report.
Rice would then have learned that during 2006, the Israelis killed 660 Palestninans including 141 children, as opposed to 17 Israelis, including one minor, killed by Palestinian actions. In addition, Israeli forces demolished, during the same year, 292 Palestinian houses in the occupied Palestinian territories, in addition to 42 houses in occupied East Jerusalem.
Rice would have learned that the Israelis maintain in the West Bank some 52 permanent checkpoints in addition to hundreds of physical obstacles such as concrete blocs to restrict access to Palestinian communities. At the same time the Jewish settlers enjoy access to some special 41 roadways, while the Palestinians are denied access to these Jews-only roads.
As a frequent praiser of Israel’s vibrant democracy, Rice would have been interested in learning that Israel holds some 9000 Palestninans, including 345 children, in prison, and that of these some 738, including 22 children, are held without trial and without knowing the charges against them.
Rice would also have learned that former President Jimmy Carter’s use of the term Apartheid to describe the Israeli occupation in his recent book Palestine: Peace or Apartheid- and for which he was criticised by the Washington establishment, was not gratuiteous.
The Israeli human rights group reached the same conclusion in the report cited above: “Israel has established in the Occupied Territories a… discrimination regime, in which it maintains two systems of laws, and a person’s rights are based on his or her national origin. This regime is the only one of its kind in the world, and brings to mind dark regimes of the past, such as the Apartheid regime in South Africa. “
President Carter has now concluded that “ Israel will never find peace until it is willing to withdraw from its neighboring occupied territories and permit the Palestinians to exercise their basic human and political rights.” (Washington Post. Jan 18.07)
Had Rice taken the trouble to learn any of these facts, conveniently sanitized from public debate in the United States, she might have learned the need to define the Israeli-Palestine conflict with more fairness and intellectual honesty.
She might have detected the fallacy underlying the usual Israeli strategy of confiscation, dispossession, dispersion and the systematic shattering of the Palestinian society, while blaming the victim for the absence of peace.
Prof. Adel Safty is Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Siberian Academy of Public Administration, Russia. His latest book, Leadership and Democracy, is published in New York.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Rice dismisses report North Korea helping Iran prepare nuke test
Wed Jan 24, 5:34 PM ET
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sought to play down a report in a British newspaper that North Korea was helping Iran prepare an eventual nuclear test explosion.
"I don't see that it's based on anything that I've seen," Rice said of the report published in The Daily Telegraph.
"I don't see what it's based on," she told reporters accompanying her to a Lebanon donors conference in Paris.
Citing an unnamed senior European defence official, the newspaper said that North Korea has agreed to share all the data it received from its nuclear test last year as both countries face Western pressures over the development of their own nuclear programmes.
"The Iranians are working closely with the North Koreans to study the results of last year's North Korean nuclear bomb test," the European defence official was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
"We have identified increased activity at all of Iran's nuclear facilities since the turn of the year ... All the indications are that the Iranians are working hard to prepare for their own underground nuclear test."
The official also said that North Korea had invited a team of Iranian scientists to study the results of last year's underground nuclear test.
Rice also said she had spoken with her South Korean counterpart Wednesday and the foreign ministers of China and Japan on Tuesday as part of efforts to hold a new round of six-party nuclear disarmament talks with North Korea.
"We're hoping for an early resumption. I think its' time to do that," she said.
"We've had productive preparatory discussions with all of the parties, including the North Koreans, but there's not going to be an agreement until we're in the six-party format," she said.
"So I think people would like to get to an early resumption of the talks."
The six-nation talks involving China, Japan, Russia and the United States, as well as North and South Korea, started in 2003 but have been repeatedly suspended and have failed to yield concrete results.
The most recent round was held last month in Beijing after a 13-month break and a UN Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on North Korea for carrying out its first nuclear test explosion in October failed to make any headway.
US and North Korean negotiators met in Berlin last week and reported progress towards a resumption of the broader negotiations, but no date has been set.
Iran is also under UN sanctions since December for refusing to suspend a uranium enrichment program it says is designed to produce fuel for nuclear power production but that many fear is aimed at making nuclear weapons.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Ex-Rice speechwriter: Bush Admin clueless on Middle Eastern History
"No one in a senior position in this administration seems to have even the vaguest notion of modern Middle Eastern history." - Adam Garfinkle
How Rice Uses History Lessons
By Neil King Jr.
LONDON -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice often calls herself "a student of history." And increasingly, she is using history -- or her chosen slice of it -- both to explain and justify the Bush administration's Middle East policy.
When Ms. Rice talks about the challenges the U.S. faces across the Mideast, she points, somewhat surprisingly, to Europe after World War II and to the West's decades-long face-off against the Soviet Union, which happens to be her area of expertise. It is a penchant that has scholars scratching their heads.
Citing the Cold War's denouement as context for today's ...
Excerpt:
"The reason that I cite some of these other times, like Europe, is that it is so clear in everybody's mind that the United States and its allies came out victorious at the end of the Cold War," she said in Kuwait. "But if you...look at the events that ultimately lead to that, you would have thought that this was failing every single day between 1945-1946 and probably 1987 or 1988."
Her contention is while things may look bad now in Iraq and elsewhere in the region, history is on the administration's side. She pushed a similar argument to reporters last month. The Middle East is "moving toward something that I am quite certain will not have a full resolution and that you will not be able to fully judge for decades," she said.
Critics dismiss Ms. Rice's references to the Cold War as both convenient and a sign of her limited frame of reference. The challenges facing Europe in 1946, they say, bear little similarity to those of the Middle East in the 21st century.
"The administration's reservoir of historical analogies seems limited to the 1914-1991 period. And it's all about Europe," said Adam Garfinkle, a former Rice speechwriter who edits the foreign-policy journal The American Interest. "No one in a senior position in this administration seems to have even the vaguest notion of modern Middle Eastern history."
How Rice Uses History Lessons
By Neil King Jr.
LONDON -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice often calls herself "a student of history." And increasingly, she is using history -- or her chosen slice of it -- both to explain and justify the Bush administration's Middle East policy.
When Ms. Rice talks about the challenges the U.S. faces across the Mideast, she points, somewhat surprisingly, to Europe after World War II and to the West's decades-long face-off against the Soviet Union, which happens to be her area of expertise. It is a penchant that has scholars scratching their heads.
Citing the Cold War's denouement as context for today's ...
Excerpt:
"The reason that I cite some of these other times, like Europe, is that it is so clear in everybody's mind that the United States and its allies came out victorious at the end of the Cold War," she said in Kuwait. "But if you...look at the events that ultimately lead to that, you would have thought that this was failing every single day between 1945-1946 and probably 1987 or 1988."
Her contention is while things may look bad now in Iraq and elsewhere in the region, history is on the administration's side. She pushed a similar argument to reporters last month. The Middle East is "moving toward something that I am quite certain will not have a full resolution and that you will not be able to fully judge for decades," she said.
Critics dismiss Ms. Rice's references to the Cold War as both convenient and a sign of her limited frame of reference. The challenges facing Europe in 1946, they say, bear little similarity to those of the Middle East in the 21st century.
"The administration's reservoir of historical analogies seems limited to the 1914-1991 period. And it's all about Europe," said Adam Garfinkle, a former Rice speechwriter who edits the foreign-policy journal The American Interest. "No one in a senior position in this administration seems to have even the vaguest notion of modern Middle Eastern history."
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Jimmy Carter: A New Chance for Peace?
By Jimmy Carter
Thursday, January 18, 2007; A23
I am concerned that public discussion of my book "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid" has been diverted from the book's basic proposals: that peace talks be resumed after six years of delay and that the tragic persecution of Palestinians be ended. Although most critics have not seriously disputed or even mentioned the facts and suggestions about these two issues, an apparently concerted campaign has been focused on the book's title, combined with allegations that I am anti-Israel. This is not good for any of us who are committed to Israel's status as a peaceful nation living in harmony with its neighbors.
It is encouraging that President Bush has announced that peace in the Holy Land will be a high priority for his administration during the next two years. On her current trip to the region, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has called for an early U.S.-Israeli-Palestinian meeting. She has recommended the 2002 offer of the 23 Arab nations as a foundation for peace: full recognition of Israel based on a return to its internationally recognized borders. This offer is compatible with official U.S. policy, previous agreements approved by Israeli governments in 1978 and 1993, and the "road map" for peace developed by the "quartet" (the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations).
The clear fact is that Israel will never find peace until it is willing to withdraw from its neighboring occupied territories and permit the Palestinians to exercise their basic human and political rights. With land swaps, this "green line" can be modified through negotiations to let a substantial number of Israeli settlers remain in their subsidized homes east of the internationally recognized border. The premise of exchanging Arab territory for peace has been acceptable for several decades to a majority of Israelis but not to a minority of the more conservative leaders, who are unfortunately supported by most of the vocal American Jewish community.
These same premises, of course, will have to be accepted by any government that represents the Palestinians. A March 2006 poll by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah found 73 percent approval among citizens in the occupied territories, and Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has expressed support for talks between President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and pledged to end Hamas's rejectionist position if a negotiated agreement is approved by the Palestinian people.
Abbas is wise in repeating to Secretary Rice that he rejects any "interim" boundaries for the Palestinian state. The step-by-step road-map formula promulgated almost three years ago for reaching a final agreement has proved to be a non-starter -- and an excuse for not making any progress. I know from experience that it is often more difficult to negotiate an interim agreement, with all its future uncertainties, than to address the panoply of crucial issues that will have to be resolved to reach the goal of peace.
Given these recent developments and with the Democratic Party poised to play a more important role in governing, this is a good time to clarify our party's overall policy in the broader Middle East. Numerous options are available as Congress attempts to correlate its suggestions with White House policy, and there is little doubt that the basic proposals of the Iraq Study Group provide a good foundation on which Democrats might reach something of a consensus (recognizing that individual lawmakers could still make their own proposals on details). This party policy would provide a reasonable answer to the allegation that Democrats have no alternatives of their own to address the Iraq quagmire.
A key factor in an Iraq policy would be strong demands on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government to cooperate in ending sectarian violence, prodded by a clear notice of plans for troop withdrawals. A commitment to regional cooperation, including opportunities for Iran and Syria to participate, would be beneficial in assuring doubtful Iraqis that America will no longer be the dominant outside power shaping their military, political and economic future.
Although Israel's prime minister has criticized these facets of the Iraq Study Group's report, the most difficult recommendation for many Democrats could be the call for substantive peace talks on the Palestinian issue. The situation in the occupied territories will be a crucial factor, and it would be helpful for both the House and Senate to send a responsible delegation to the West Bank and Gaza to observe the situation personally, to meet with key leaders and to ascertain the prospects if peace talks can be launched.
I am convinced that, with bipartisan support, this is a good opportunity for progress.
The writer was the 39th president and is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. His most recent book is "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid."
Monday, January 15, 2007
Palestinian PM accuses Rice of bringing 'perilous vision' to Mideast
Last update - 20:48 15/01/2007
By Aluf Benn and Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondents, and the Associated Press
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas on Monday accused U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of bringing a "perilous vision" to the region, shortly after she announced plans to join an Israeli-Palestinian summit in the coming weeks.
Rice, who is in the Middle East in hopes of restarting peace efforts, is trying to "sedate" the Palestinians with promises of easing Israeli restrictions while really serving Israel's interests, said Haniyeh.
"She is bringing a perilous vision that everyone should be wary of," Haniyeh said. "It seems obvious the Bush administration will not exert any pressures on Israel to offer any substantial concessions to the Palestinian people."
Rice is seeking to bolster the moderate Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, in his standoff against Hamas. Those efforts include more than $80 million in assistance to Abbas' Presidential Guard.
Haniyeh called the aid to Abbas "dangerous" and said it would only worsen recent infighting between Hamas and Abbas' Fatah movement.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday that while he was in favor of a three-way summit, bilateral talks between Israel and the Palestinians must also continue.
U.S. officials said after Olmert's three-hour meeting with Rice on Monday that the two had agreed to hold a three-way summit with Abbas in the near future.
Olmert said that the summit would "consider relations between us and the Palestinians," but added that "there is no doubt that we must - at the same time - also continue the bilateral meetings between us and them."
Senior Palestine Liberation Organization negotiator Saeb Erekat said Abbas was ready to attend the summit "in principle," but details about where and when the summit would be held were not worked out.
Erekat said Rice is reflecting a serious and genuine interest in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. "What she said is that President Bush, in the remaining two years of his office, has no more important priority than to leave office with a Palestinian state alongside Israel. He wants to see his vision realized," he said.
A senior U.S. official in Rice's delegation said the "trilateral meeting" would be aimed at "having a conversation about the political horizon leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state."
Olmert's spokeswoman, Miri Eisin, said no date or place had been set for the summit.
The U.S. official said the meeting would likely take place in the next three or four weeks somewhere in the Middle East.
Speaking to his Kadima faction after meeting with Rice, Olmert said that the internationally brokered road map continues to be the basis for the peace process, and that there was "no substitute for bilateral negotiations" with the Palestinians.
He said that if a Palestinian unity government made up of Hamas and Fatah agreed to accept the three key international demands for recognition of Israel, the renunciation of violence and acceptance of previous accords, then negotiations could be possible.
No details of the talks between Olmert and Rice were formally released, but the prime minister had been expected to tell the secretary of state that Israel would take "unprecedented steps" vis-a-vis the Palestinians, if the Hamas-led PA government met the criteria spelled out by the Quartet.
The meeting between Olmert and Rice was also called to discuss ways to boost Abbas' standing, as a means to further the diplomatic process between Israel and the Palestinians.
The prime minister was to stress that his is a "peace government" but without the Palestinians meeting the three international preconditions it is impossible to more forward.
Olmert was also expected to warn that the establishment of a Palestinian government of national unity, which does not adopt the preconditions set by the Quartet, will bring an end to Israel's efforts to support Abbas.
On Sunday, Shin Bet security service chief Yuval Diskin told the cabinet that the violence between Fatah and Hamas, which led to the deaths of 20 people last week, was considered by the Palestinians as crossing a "red line." He added that this could result in greater flexibility on the part of the factions in agreeing on a government of national unity.
Political sources in Jerusalem said on Sunday that "the Palestinians are now talking about the division of ministerial portfolios in the new government, without committing themselves to accept the Quartet preconditions."
Meanwhile, in an interview on Channel 10 on Sunday, Rice said the road map must be implemented and there is no reason to skip over any of its stages. Her comment was in part referring to an earlier rejection by Abbas of the idea that the second stage of the road map - calling for a Palestinian state based on temporary borders - was a realistic possibility at this stage.
She also said that in her talks with Abbas on Sunday, he had reiterated his wish and willingness to carry out Palestinian obligations laid out in the road map.
Following their meeting in Ramallah on Sunday, Abbas announced that he would not agree to a Palestinian state within temporary borders, as is proposed in the second stage of the road map. "We do not consider this possibility a realistic one that we can build on," the Palestinian leader said.
Other Palestinian officials also voiced their opposition to such an arrangement, saying that it would stymie progress toward a final settlement.
Rice said that the U.S. intends to deepen its involvement in the peace process, aiming to restart it on the basis of the road map.
There have been reports in recent days that a summit of the leaderships of both Fatah and Hamas is being organized in Damascus, with the specific aim of finalizing an agreement for a national unity government. Abbas denied that any such meeting is scheduled to take place.
According to the reports, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Sheikh Mohammed Akef, was instrumental in convincing Khaled Meshal, the head of Hamas' political bureau, and Abbas to meet in order to iron out their differences.
By Aluf Benn and Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondents, and the Associated Press
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas on Monday accused U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of bringing a "perilous vision" to the region, shortly after she announced plans to join an Israeli-Palestinian summit in the coming weeks.
Rice, who is in the Middle East in hopes of restarting peace efforts, is trying to "sedate" the Palestinians with promises of easing Israeli restrictions while really serving Israel's interests, said Haniyeh.
"She is bringing a perilous vision that everyone should be wary of," Haniyeh said. "It seems obvious the Bush administration will not exert any pressures on Israel to offer any substantial concessions to the Palestinian people."
Rice is seeking to bolster the moderate Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, in his standoff against Hamas. Those efforts include more than $80 million in assistance to Abbas' Presidential Guard.
Haniyeh called the aid to Abbas "dangerous" and said it would only worsen recent infighting between Hamas and Abbas' Fatah movement.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday that while he was in favor of a three-way summit, bilateral talks between Israel and the Palestinians must also continue.
U.S. officials said after Olmert's three-hour meeting with Rice on Monday that the two had agreed to hold a three-way summit with Abbas in the near future.
Olmert said that the summit would "consider relations between us and the Palestinians," but added that "there is no doubt that we must - at the same time - also continue the bilateral meetings between us and them."
Senior Palestine Liberation Organization negotiator Saeb Erekat said Abbas was ready to attend the summit "in principle," but details about where and when the summit would be held were not worked out.
Erekat said Rice is reflecting a serious and genuine interest in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. "What she said is that President Bush, in the remaining two years of his office, has no more important priority than to leave office with a Palestinian state alongside Israel. He wants to see his vision realized," he said.
A senior U.S. official in Rice's delegation said the "trilateral meeting" would be aimed at "having a conversation about the political horizon leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state."
Olmert's spokeswoman, Miri Eisin, said no date or place had been set for the summit.
The U.S. official said the meeting would likely take place in the next three or four weeks somewhere in the Middle East.
Speaking to his Kadima faction after meeting with Rice, Olmert said that the internationally brokered road map continues to be the basis for the peace process, and that there was "no substitute for bilateral negotiations" with the Palestinians.
He said that if a Palestinian unity government made up of Hamas and Fatah agreed to accept the three key international demands for recognition of Israel, the renunciation of violence and acceptance of previous accords, then negotiations could be possible.
No details of the talks between Olmert and Rice were formally released, but the prime minister had been expected to tell the secretary of state that Israel would take "unprecedented steps" vis-a-vis the Palestinians, if the Hamas-led PA government met the criteria spelled out by the Quartet.
The meeting between Olmert and Rice was also called to discuss ways to boost Abbas' standing, as a means to further the diplomatic process between Israel and the Palestinians.
The prime minister was to stress that his is a "peace government" but without the Palestinians meeting the three international preconditions it is impossible to more forward.
Olmert was also expected to warn that the establishment of a Palestinian government of national unity, which does not adopt the preconditions set by the Quartet, will bring an end to Israel's efforts to support Abbas.
On Sunday, Shin Bet security service chief Yuval Diskin told the cabinet that the violence between Fatah and Hamas, which led to the deaths of 20 people last week, was considered by the Palestinians as crossing a "red line." He added that this could result in greater flexibility on the part of the factions in agreeing on a government of national unity.
Political sources in Jerusalem said on Sunday that "the Palestinians are now talking about the division of ministerial portfolios in the new government, without committing themselves to accept the Quartet preconditions."
Meanwhile, in an interview on Channel 10 on Sunday, Rice said the road map must be implemented and there is no reason to skip over any of its stages. Her comment was in part referring to an earlier rejection by Abbas of the idea that the second stage of the road map - calling for a Palestinian state based on temporary borders - was a realistic possibility at this stage.
She also said that in her talks with Abbas on Sunday, he had reiterated his wish and willingness to carry out Palestinian obligations laid out in the road map.
Following their meeting in Ramallah on Sunday, Abbas announced that he would not agree to a Palestinian state within temporary borders, as is proposed in the second stage of the road map. "We do not consider this possibility a realistic one that we can build on," the Palestinian leader said.
Other Palestinian officials also voiced their opposition to such an arrangement, saying that it would stymie progress toward a final settlement.
Rice said that the U.S. intends to deepen its involvement in the peace process, aiming to restart it on the basis of the road map.
There have been reports in recent days that a summit of the leaderships of both Fatah and Hamas is being organized in Damascus, with the specific aim of finalizing an agreement for a national unity government. Abbas denied that any such meeting is scheduled to take place.
According to the reports, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Sheikh Mohammed Akef, was instrumental in convincing Khaled Meshal, the head of Hamas' political bureau, and Abbas to meet in order to iron out their differences.
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