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America in the Middle East

Rice tried to push for Palestine now


By Stan Goodenough
June 24, 2007

As expected, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has tried to capitalize on the “new reality” created by the Hamas takeover of Gaza by pushing Israel into agreeing to initiate an express track towards the creation of a Palestinian state.

The American reportedly made her move during Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s trip to Washington last week.

According to reports in the Israeli press Sunday, Rice tried to nudge Israel into negotiating a final status solution with PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas – but then holding its implementation in abeyance until he was strengthened in his position as “Palestinian” leader.

Although Olmert is ready to help bolster Abbas, and has himself chosen to see the Hamas putsch as useful for helping restart the dead-in-the-water diplomatic process, he was not prepared to agree to what has been coined a “shelf agreement.”

At least not yet.

For Rice – who appears to have been given President George W. Bush’s blessing to set the direction and pace of the land-for-peace process – it is increasingly important to clinch some kind of a deal between Israel and the “Palestinians” before the current administration is rendered a lame duck.

The secretary and her boss have virtually obligated themselves to tie down an agreement by the end of 2008.

Having a final status solution already signed and sealed – if not delivered – would pretty much resolve them of having to do anything more.

For Israel, however, such an agreement would constitute a second-to-final nail in the coffin as any future Israeli government would be almost required to honor what was agreed upon.

As it is, it appears highly unlikely that anything less than a massive and unmistakable effort by the Arabs to destroy Israel in a full military onslaught – one Israel would have to respond to with overwhelming might – would be able to free the Jewish state from the commitments it has already made towards giving the “Palestinians” a state.

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