Rice makes new push to break Arab-Israeli impasse
Source: Reuters
By Sue Pleming AMMAN, Nov 29 (Reuters) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice embarks on a new U.S. push to revive peace moves between Israel and the Palestinians on Wednesday after being criticised for not doing enough to resolve the conflict. Rice will attend a summit between U.S. President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Jordan before heading to the West Bank city of Jericho on Thursday to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The United States is under pressure from moderate Arab allies and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to make tackling the Israeli-Palestinian issue a priority, while also trying to staunch the violence in Iraq. She hopes to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on her trip although the State Department said her tight schedule might prevent this. "We're still working on it," said one official. The Bush administration hopes to build on a shaky ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and to capitalise on a speech this week in which Olmert called for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said security issues would top the agenda at the talks with Abbas. Washington would offer suggestions on how to beef up Abbas's security forces to prevent "terrorist" attacks and rockets being fired from Gaza into Israel, McCormack said. U.S. officials said Rice would call for movement on breaking the impasse in forming a Palestinian unity government with Hamas, the militant group that won elections last January and whose administration has been shunned by the West. "This (Hamas government) is not working, it is broken. We have encouraged Abu Mazen (Abbas) to find a way out of this and if he can't then he has other options available," a senior State Department official told Reuters. "When you strip all this stuff away this is a naked game of power," he said of the struggle between Abbas's once dominant Fatah movement and Hamas. Abbas has told Jordan talks on a unity government have hit a dead end and he will pursue other options. These could include dismissal of the Hamas government and the appointment of a new prime minister, a move that could trigger new violence between the two factions. DOUBTS Some Middle East experts doubt Rice can make much progress on this trip. "The question still is, how much can you move when there really isn't consensus among the Palestinians or the Israelis on when or what to move to," said Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. Another expert, Shibley Telhami, said the main problem was a lack of U.S. pressure on Israel. But he said Washington might be encouraged to push Israel by the growing view that Arab-Israeli issues must be tackled if there is to be any progress in Iraq. "It is very hard to separate the issues and I think they would stand to benefit (on Iraq) by pushing on the Arab-Israeli issue," said Telhami of the University of Maryland. Part of Rice's strategy has been to secure more cooperation on both Iraq and the Arab-Israeli issue from moderate Arab nations such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, which have been critical of the lack of U.S. engagement in the Middle East. After seeing Abbas, Rice will meet ministers from the Gulf Cooperation Council as well as Egypt and Jordan on the sidelines of a democracy conference at the Dead Sea in Jordan where the main topic will be how to revive the peace process.
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