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America in the Middle East

Rice: Israel I'm watching you


By Stan Goodenough
March 31, 2008

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wrapped up a two day visit to Israel and the Middle East Monday, but warned the Israelis that she will be monitoring them even more closely to ensure that they carry out their obligations under the Annapolis agreement.

Her visit - the third this year - was aimed at tightening the screws on Israel in order to be able to nail down a framework agreement by May 14 for the establishment of a Palestinian state on historical Jewish land.

US President George W. Bush is scheduled to be in Israel on that date, which marks - on the Gregorian calendar - the 60th anniversary of Israel's Declaration of Independence.

For the American administration, the dates appear to be part of the strategy. The Annapolis Conference was held on the 60th anniversary of the United Nations vote partitioning Palestine between Jews and Arabs.

At that event, under intense pressure from host Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agreed to set November 4 this year as a deadline for reaching a final agreement with PLO Chief Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority.

And Bush said Sunday, according to the German newspaper Die Welt: "I hope that President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert can sign an agreement before the end of my presidency [in January] that defines a clearly-outlined Palestinian state."

While Rice claimed, upon her arrival here Saturday night, she had not come to insert American demands - this is really an all-American show and one with which Israel is expected to cooperate, especially as Bush has tied his political prestige to achieving substantial results in the effort to give the Palestinian Arabs a state on land belonging to Israel.

Diplomatic reporters noted that Rice has not held back from "scolding" Israel's political leaders for "not doing enough" to ease life for the Arabs. A focal point of her visit this time was purportedly to try ease the movement of Arabs in Judea and Samaria.

Restrictions on their movement have come about as a result of the "Palestinian" civilians harboring terrorists and terrorists using the civilian population as a human shield.

Reported The Jerusalem Post Monday, Barak "learned his lesson from the last Rice visit, when she scolded him for not doing enough to ease the conditions of the Palestinians."

This time he had come to their meeting with a lengthy document, in English, outlining the steps Israel would take.

Rice said, first to Barak and later to foreign journalists, that she planned on more vigilantly monitoring Israel's implementation of its commitments "than she had been in the past."

Despite Israeli promises to remove roadblocks in Samaria and Judea, the number of roadblocks had actually increased since Annapolis, she complained.

Now, however, the US was going to make sure that Israel complied.

"We've been told this is going to start and even be completed in a relatively short period of time. I'm not going to give you a date but I'm expecting it to happen very, very soon," the secretary said.

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