Haaretz- 16/10/2007

Editorial, (Haaretz)

"Rice is once again shuttling between the two parties, while stressing the importance she (and hopefully US President George W. Bush) attributes to the Annapolis meeting and the dangers that failing at the current peace drive entail for the restoration of the peace process.

The visitor seems to have embraced the assumption that the Arab Peace Initiative and the rupture between Hamas and Fatah provide convenient conditions for achieving progress in the effort to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

She shares the opinion that diplomatic stalemate constitutes an invitation for the radical parties that have seized the Gaza Strip to tighten their grip on the West Bank. Following her meeting with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas yesterday, Rice said the international peace process must be substantive. She also commended both sides for striving to shove aside their differences.

Rice does not content herself with promoting understandings between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Abbas. Like some of her predecessors at the State Department, who had dipped their toes in the quagmire of the conflict, Rice is attempting to utilize Washington's prestige as a superpower and her personal influence to persuade the Israeli premier's coalition partners and party members to cooperate."

"In her meeting with the ministers, Rice reminded them that Israel has for dozens of years avoided the necessary move of addressing the core issues, and that a decision on the matter is now inevitable.

"Frankly, it's time for the establishment of a Palestinian state," Rice later said. Her words will probably not be greeted with applause from Israeli right-wing circles nor by Jewish and Christian groups that have influence over the Bush Administration's top brass and in Congress."

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