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America in the Middle East

'Exasperated' Rice: Building up J'lem impedes peace


By Stan Goodenough
June 15, 2008

United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came to Jerusalem Sunday to tell Israel's government it needs to stop construction in its ancient capital because it makes the Arabs angry.

"Ongoing Israeli construction in areas the Palestinians want for their future state 'has the potential to harm the negotiations,'" Rice said according to The Jerusalem Post.

In a meeting with her Israeli counterpart, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, Rice said she is "very concerned that at a time when we need to build confidence between the parties, the continued building and the settlement activity has the potential to harm the negotiations going forward."

The Post said Rice "appeared more exasperated with the Israeli construction than she has in [the] past."

"Look, it's a problem, and it's a problem that we're going to address with the Israelis. "This is obviously a road map obligation that is not being met," she reportedly told journalists on her plane.

Both Rice and Livni were [appropriately - Ed. note] dressed in black as they stood in front of the press before going into their meeting.

It is Rice's sixth visit to Israel this year - pushing up her drop-in average to once-a-month, after making 11 stops in the previous year-and-a-half.

The Bush administration is understood to be increasingly desperate to secure some sort of Israeli-"Palestinian" agreement before the end of its term next January.

Creating a Palestinian state in the heart of the Jews' historical homeland is the ultimate aim of the US-sponsored "peace" process.

The Islamic-Arab world insists that Jerusalem, with its holiest parts, be the capital of that state.

Apart from the Jews, no other nation has ever had Jerusalem as its capital, and there has never been a State of Palestine.

According to the Jewish-Christian Bible, Jerusalem belongs to the Jewish people as the capital of their exclusive homeland, which includes all the territory the international community accuses Israel of "occupying" and wishes to see turned into a Palestinian state.

Since being miraculously restored to Jewish sovereignty in 1961 - after more than 2000 years of gentile control - Jerusalem has been modernized, massively expanded and beautified.

Psalm 102 states:

_Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to favor her, yea, the set time, is come. For Thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favor the dust thereof. So the heathen shall fear the name of the LORD, and all the kings of the earth thy glory. When the LORD shall build up Zion, He shall appear in his glory._ (verses 13 to 16)

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