Palestine-Mandate

The date hasn’t even been set, yet U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice told journalists travelling with her, in a “roundtable” discussion on Sunday night, that she’s pleased and amazed that the “parties” are now speaking a lot about the day after Annapolis.

(Actually, it was the U.S. side which mentioned that this would be the necessary perspective, during Rice’s previous visit to the region, but never mind. Rice seems happy to let the “parties” think it was their idea — or to let the press think that it was the “parties’” idea…)

The press corps travelling with Condoleeza Rice were actually more interested in President Musharraf’s actions in Pakistan than the day’s developments in Jerusalem.

Still, they got down to the matter toward the end of the “roundtable”.

Rice told the journalists: “[W]hat we’ve really been trying to be very clear on is that they want to come to Annapolis with some understandings about how they move forward. But increasingly, you hear them talking not so much about specifically what might be in this document, but about how they are going to actually get to the negotiation of a Palestinian state. And I think that’s actually a very healthy move”.

Pressed by the press, Rice asked teasingly, Does everybody remember what was said (in a similar briefing by the same participants) in this same room last February? “When everybody said, is ‘political horizon’ an empty phrase for ‘They can’t talk about the real issues’?”

Rice added: [Y]ou’re starting to see here is that people are starting to see Annapolis as the beginning of a process, not a single point in time. And that’s extremely important because the more that they talk about the day after Annapolis and that they are going to have to continue their work to the establishment of a Palestinian state, the more likely they are to get to a place where they’re actually going to end the conflict. And I think what you’re seeing is that people are starting to address really difficult issues that they haven’t addressed in a long time. And that means that, you know, they’re negotiating and they’re trying not to negotiate in the newspapers. They really are, which is remarkable”.
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