Palestine-Mandate

In the U.S. State Department Daily Press Briefing on Friday, spokesman Sean McCormack was asked by a journalist (and replied) the following:

“QUESTION: Since the Secretary is going tomorrow to Israel, what about Prime Minister Olmert’s vow to continue the settlement-building process?

MR. MCCORMACK: You know our views on this matter. The President has spoken to it. The Secretary has spoken to it. We expect that both sides would comply with their Roadmap obligations. And there are obviously provisions within the Roadmap concerning settlements and outposts, and we would expect that both sides — Israel and the Palestinians — comply with those obligations. You recently heard from us that we didn’t think either side was doing enough to comply with the Roadmap obligations. So I expect that during this trip, the Secretary will talk not only about the political process with both sides and how that is proceeding, what we can do to help them move it forward, but also talk about the importance of moving forward with compliance on the Roadmap obligations”.

What did Olmert say? As reported on UN-Truth here:

“Olmert cited the 14 April 2004 letter from U.S. President George W. Bush to then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as providing the basis for developing “existing population centers” in the West Bank as well as in East Jerusalem.

Israel will not build any more settlements, Olmert said, nor will it expropriate any more land. And, illegal outposts will be dealt with, he indicated.But, he stressed, ‘in population centers there were be more additional building’, and ‘the reality on the ground will continue to change’.

He said that this had been made very clear at the outset of the present Annapolis process.

Recent Israeli announcements of a number of new housing tenders for Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and one in the West Bank (Givat Ze’ev), were made immediately after the recent attack by an East Jerusalem Palestinian on the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva, which killed eight students there (four of whom were children under the age of 18).

On Givat Zeev, Olmert brushed off any criticism. ‘Most of the apartments approved are already built, and paid for, for many years’, he said”.

The Jerusalem Post reported Friday that “Defense Minister Ehud Barak has warned the United States that gestures Israel is making to the Palestinians - including approving the transfer to the Palestinian Authority of weapons and armored vehicles, and allowing the deployment of PA policemen in West Bank cities - could ultimately backfire because Hamas could come to power in the West Bank and be better equipped to turn on Israel. Barak issued the warning during a recent meeting with the US special envoy to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Gen. James Jones. The Israeli defense establishment has drawn up a list of further gestures together with Jones that are set to include deploying 600 Jordanian-trained PA policemen in Jenin and the possible removal of dirt roadblocks. ‘We need to keep in mind the possibility that after all we have done, Hamas will take over the West Bank, not only by force but even in the upcoming general elections’, Barak told Jones, according to defense officials. ‘This is certainly a possibility’. Barak plans to present the list of gestures to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is set to arrive in Israel on Saturday night, during their meeting the next day … But Israeli defense officials dismissed claims that Barak was facing criticism from the US for not making greater efforts to remove roadblocks or to ease restrictions in the West Bank. ‘Both the Americans and the Palestinians understand that if we lift a roadblock and there is an attack we will fall back instead of moving forward in the negotiations’, one official said. At the same time, the US has welcomed Barak’s planned moves to ease movement for West Bank Palestinians. ‘These are welcome developments that indicate a desire by the Israeli authorities to move forward, to try to help improve the situation on the ground’, the administration official said. The gestures, which have yet to be finalized, include the deployment in Jenin of 600 PA policemen currently being trained in Jordan. Barak is also considering the removal of several dirt roadblocks in the West Bank. The armed policemen in Jenin will be charged with maintaining order in the town during the day, but the IDF will retain security control and will continue to operate in the town at night. Other gestures included opening a VIP lane at checkpoints and exempting Palestinian businessmen who are approved by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) from inspections”. The full JPost article is here.

Leaving the other “gestures” aside for the moment, will the Americans be impressed by a VIP lane at checkpoints for Palestinian businessmen approved by the Shin Bet? Will the Palestinians?

Haaretz reported earlier that “U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to hold two trilateral meetings during her visit to the region next week. [1] One American-Israeli-Palestinian conclave will deal with the final-status negotiations, while the other will address the situation on the ground in the West Bank and what both sides are doing, or not doing, to fulfill their obligations under the road map peace plan. Rice will arrive Saturday and stay for three days. She will hold meetings in Jerusalem, Ramallah and Amman - the latter with King Abdullah of Jordan. The visit is intended to signal growing American involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and to prod both sides to make significant progress before U.S. President George Bush visits the region in May. Rice is interested in raising the profile of the final-status talks and demonstrating real progress on the core issues. To this end, she plans one three-way meeting with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and former Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qureia, who head the respective negotiating teams. A joint declaration about progress in the negotiations might be issued at the end of it. The Livni-Qureia talks are being conducted very intensively: The two met twice this week and three times last week. They are also being conducted in great secrecy, and even Rice has not been fully briefed on the details. Virtually nothing has been leaked from these talks except the message that they are ‘progressing well’. The talks have dealt with the issues of borders, refugees, settlements and security. It is not clear whether they have also dealt with Jerusalem: Both parties prefer ambiguity on this issue, especially in light of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s promise to Shas that Jerusalem will be discussed only at the end. [2] Rice also plans to focus on practical steps to improve the situation in the West Bank, as called for in the road map. To this end, she plans separate meetings with Defense Minister Ehud Barak and PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, followed by a joint meeting with both of them. A week ago, a trilateral monitoring commission, headed by American General William Fraser, held its first meeting to review both sides’ implementation of their road map obligations. At that meeting, Fraser told the Palestinians they were not doing enough to fight terror and criticized Israel for its failure to remove West Bank roadblocks and dismantle illegal settlement outposts. Rice has made several statements recently about her unhappiness with both sides’ foot-dragging on their road map commitments. However, she has directed most of her criticism at Israel, for not doing enough to improve the daily lives of West Bank Palestinians. Barak plans to present Rice with the list of Israeli steps that he decided on this week, which he previously discussed with Fayyad at their meeting on Wednesday”.

In addition, Haaretz reports, “Rice is also interested in a proposed bill to compensate any settler who leaves the West Bank voluntarily, even before a final-status agreement is signed. She first heard about the idea at a meeting in Jerusalem with Minister Without Portfolio Ami Ayalon a few months ago. At the time, Ayalon told Rice it was critical for the U.S. to push this matter forward, since otherwise, it would go nowhere. American officials have also discussed this issue with MKs Avshalom Vilan(Meretz) and Colette Avital (Labor), who sponsored the legislation. There is growing interest in the idea in Washington, on the assumption that such a law would show the Palestinians that Israel is serious about quitting the West Bank”. This Haaretz article is posted here.

To make this perfectly clear, the Israeli Defense Minister (and former Prime Minister) Ehud Barak said he would make these “gestures” — but would not take other steps that U.S. officials (including the U.S. Road Map “monitor”, General Jones, and Secretary Rice as well) have been pressing Israel on, for months.

On Monday, for example, the Associated Press (AP) reported: “Visiting a crossing between the southern West Bank and Israel, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the checkpoints block militants and are vital to Israel’s security. The government would ‘look into’ certain changes to in a limited test area, he said, but offered no details. ‘It’s still too early to give an answer’, Barak said. Israel sees the barriers as a key element of a military policy that has dramatically reduced militant attacks in recent years. Palestinians say the roadblocks humiliate them and stifle their economy. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, now an international Mideast envoy, has urged Israel to ease Palestinian travel restrictions … Barak also pledged Monday that Israel would facilitate the construction of several industrial zones meant to provide thousands of jobs and boost the Palestinian economy. Many of the projects, funded by foreign governments, have been held up because of Israeli security concerns. Barak gave no timetable for the projects and did not say how he intended to move them forward”… This AP report was posted here.

Haaretz newspaper picked up this AP report and added its own touches, reporting: “Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Monday that Israel will soon begin making life easier for West Bank Palestinians, but that it won’t remove checkpoints for now. Barak said that Israel would facilitate the construction of several industrial zones meant to provide thousands of jobs and boost the Palestinian economy. Many of the projects, funded by foreign governments, have been held up because of Israeli security concerns. However, Barak gave no timetable for the projects and did not say how he intended to move them forward. Visiting a crossing terminal between the southern West Bank and Israel, Barak said Israel would soon take steps to expedite movement through the hundreds of checkpoints and roadblocks Israel has built in the West Bank … [On removing checkpoints] Barak indicated Monday such a move was not expected soon. The checkpoints block militants and are vital to Israel’s security, Barak said. He said only that the government would look into certain changes in a limited test area, but offered no further details. ‘It’s still too early to give an answer, he said’. This AP report is posted here.

The next day, Tuesday, the Jerusalem Post reported — apparently picking up on Monday’s reports and asking Barak for further information: ” ‘It is clear to us all that we must exhaust all possible means of assisting the negotiations with the Palestinians’, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Tuesday. ‘We must ease restrictions on the Palestinians whenever it does not conflict with [Israel's] defense, even at the price of a calculated risk’.” The defense minister, who was speaking during a tour of an IDF induction base, also said that ‘There are a number of economic projects that we are working on, which are intended to generate momentum and provide jobs for Palestinians’. Barak, however, emphasized that ‘we must remember that our top responsibility is to provide security to the citizens of Israel’.” This JPost report is posted here.

It requires a lawyer’s analytical ability — and probably also many lawyers — and a lot of stamina, to deal with all this …

The U.S. State Department announced that “Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will travel to Israel and Jordan on March 28-31, 2008. She will meet with Israeli and Palestinian leaders to support their ongoing bilateral dialogue and the serious effort underway to achieve agreement this year on the establishment of a Palestinian state, living side by side with Israel in peace and security. The Secretary will also discuss efforts to improve conditions on the ground and to advance Palestinian economic development and capacity building. Additionally, she will meet with King Abdullah to discuss Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, the political situation in Lebanon, stability in Iraq, and other regional developments”.

At a State Department briefing with journalists on 25 March, spokesman Sean McCormack said: “She’s going to be traveling to Jerusalem. She’s going to be traveling to Amman. I think she’s going to be having some of her meetings with Palestinian officials actually in Amman. They are going to be transiting there. I’ll try to clarify for you whether or not there will be any travel to the West Bank”.

The Jerusalem Post has reported that Rice is scheduled to arrive in Israel on Saturday night.

Haaretz reported that ” ‘Rice will meet Abbas in Amman on March 30 after the Arab summit in Damascus ends. She will then travel to Israel for talks with Olmert and return to Amman for further talks with President Abbas’, a senior Abbas oficial said”. The full Haaretz article can be found here .

“We know what it takes to make peace between Palestinians and Israelis” veteran Palestinian negotiator Sa’eb Erekat said at a press conference on Wednesday.  “We only need President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert to make the decisions…If these two can deliver they will be the most important persons to walk the streets here since Jesus Christ”. 

“Now is the time for decisions”, veteran Palestinian negotiator Sa’eb Erekat said at a press conference at the American Colony Hotel in East Jerusalem on Wednesday, where he was invited to speak to the members of the Foreign Press Association in Israel. 

 Erekat is an expert at speaking in short sound bytes.

 “We like to play with words”, Erekat told the journalists, though clearly referring to various statements made only by Israeli leaders to the effect that, with luck, what might happen this year would be more a “framework”, or “parameters”, of an agreement, rather than the actual formation of an independent Palestinian state. 

Erekat seemed to be indicating that it didn’t matter what the result would be called.

“Signing agreements doesn’t make peace … The only lasting agreements are the fair ones”, Erekat said.

He said he was under oath not to speak about or disclose the details of the current negotiations.  “What I said is that what needs to be done is to take decisions … What is needed is decisions, not negotiations”, Erekat said.

“I’ve never seen the Palestinians and Israelis closer to achieving an end game”, Erekat said.  And, “it’s the Palestinians and Israelis who must make the necessary decisions”, and not a third party, he said.   He did add that “U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is coming in two weeks, and American diplomats are on the phone every hour.  But now it’s the moment of truth — It’s either settlements or peace”. 

“President Bush has no right to discuss with Israel ceding some territory in Palestine.  He can cede New Mexico, maybe, but not here”, Erekat said.  “One day in 1995, Jordan decided to cede 29,000 square kilometers [to Israel, in the context of a peace treaty].  We’re different”.

“Without giving me the percentage of [territorial] swaps”, Erekat said, “there will be no agreement”.  But “with the percentage of agreed swaps, you’ll get an agreement in three months”, Erekat said.  “The end game is defined and the rest is all technicalities, and if you settle them, you’ll get a treaty of 1,000 pages in three months”.

“Some Palestinian leaders are throwing options in the air, Kosovo has unilaterally declared independence, and so will we, etc.  But we are not playing with that”, Erekat said.  “We have been elected to achieve something – we have a mandate – and if we fail to deliver, then what?  Shouldn’t we tell our people the truth?” 

Erekat added: “I don’t want to export fear, but if we fail to deliver in 2008, we will disappear.  There’ll be a big question about the ability of the Palestinian Authority to survive.  I mean me, and what I represent.  And the impact will not be confined to the Palestinians and the Israelis – watch the region!”

Asked to explain what negotiations are taking place with the Egyptians, and with the Yemenis, Erekat replied: “Yesterday Egypt talked with the Israelis, and today with the Palestinian factions…What the Egypt is trying to do is upon the personal request of  President Abbas to President Mubarak.  Egypt has contacts with all the Palestinian factions and the Israelis. Egypt wants ‘tahdiya’ with guarantees that no one will break it.  As far as Yemen is concerned, Hamas must go back to what things were…Hamas must rescind their coup d’etat”. 

Erekat said: “The coup d’etat in Gaza is the worst thing that happened to us since 1967.  Hamas is a Palestinian party, like me.  The difference is that we believe we can achieve peace through negotiations, but Hamas says No, you cannot … Hamas said, since we won the elections, we want to change the previously-negotiated agreements … But anyone in government must accept all the obligations … Any Palestinian government has to be on board with the program: negotiations for peace, based on a two-state solution, aiming at a signed agreement”.

Erekat rejected all the efforts by journalists to arrive at a precise definition of the meaning of “tahdiya” in English  — he said it’s not détente, not cooling off, not cease-fire, not calm, not a truce .

But what should happen, he said, is “a mutual ‘tahdiya‘ between two sides, to stop shooting, everybody is to stop shooting”.

He added: “We accepted the Yemeni proposal, as we accepted the Mecca agreement, and the Egyptian-Cairo agreement, and we said there is no military solution.  We need agreement with Israel, and we will put it to a national public referendum”. 

In response to a question from the BBC Arabic TV, asking whether the problem in the negotiations might, maybe, be with the negotiations team itself, Erekat replied:  “I hear this a lot, by the way.  I’ve resigned, I quit. 46 times.  But the problem is not personalised.  I don’t want my son to grow up to be a suicide bomber.  We’ve established the best negotiations team in the Middle East, our (PLO) Negotiations Support Unit, which has expert advisers from all over the world who assist in developing negotiating positions… In 1992, I made more money as a journalist and university professor than I have in all the years since…and I’m not here for journalists to ask me such questions”. 

This was probably the toughest moment yet in the whole Annapolis process. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice headed for previously-announced talks in the region just as the most ferocious and deadly Israeli military incursion in Gaza in years was abruptly wound up — possibly specifically because of her visit.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his negotiators had angrily announced last weekend that they could not continue talks with their Israeli counterparts under the circumstances.

Palestinian students in their school uniforms left their classrooms in East Jerusalem on Monday, groups of girls, and then groups of boys, to demonstrate on the main Salah ad-Din Street against the Israeli military actions in Gaza — shouting, burning garbage in the street, and throwing stones — as the casualty toll mounted. One Israeli car was attacked, and its windows broken. Israeli police on big and sturdy horses pushed back the groups of school children, and four arrests were made. There were other less polite demonstrations and responses elsewhere in the West Bank, with at least one Palestinian death. And Israel’s Palestinian-Arab citizens also marched in protest in Arab towns in Israel.

For months, Palestinians have been saying with concern, the feeling of a new Intifada is in the air.

Rice arrived at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport by 12:30 pm on Tuesday – after already holding morning meetings in Egypt – and, for the first time, drove straight to Ramallah without talking to Israeli officials first. She arrived at the Muqata’a presidential compound by 1:35 pm.

The main focus of her visit was to get the Palestinian Authority leadership to agree to resume post-Annapolis “core issue” and “final status” talks with Israel.

At a joint Rice-Abbas press conference in Ramallah after their meeting, Rice appeared unusually accommodating and sympathetic. And Abbas appeared firm, even adamant. The Palestinian President said that there would have to be a cease-fire before negotiations resume.

Abbas repeated this position on Wednesday morning – but then reversed his position within hours (CNN called it a U-turn), either in response to a phone call from Rice, as some reports indicate, or in response to threats of a total cut-off of international aid, as other reports speculate, or because he really believes that ‘The peace process is a strategic choice”, as he himself said, believing it is the only way to give the Palestinian people better lives.

At the very least, it was an extremely gracious concession to a visiting guest, and it may yet cost him dearly.

Time Magazine’s Tim McGirk wrote later on his Time Magazine blog page that “It seemed like the most craven of climb-downs”, and he was not alone in this opinion.

What we know for sure now is that the parties have said they intend to resume negotiations.

In the Muqata’a press conference with Rice on Tuesday, the Palestinian President said: “We warned repeatedly that Israel must not insist on its security first (only)”, and said that “Security must be reciprocal for both sides, in the proper social and economic atmosphere”.

Abu Mazen stated with some intensity that: “No one, under any pretext, can justify what the Israeli military did (in recent days) when 120 died, including many children and civilians. We need a comprehensive and reciprocal truce in Gaza and the West Bank, so that 2008 is (can be) the year of peace”. He continued: “We want to work on activating the Fourth Geneva Convention. Security is vital for both parties, and it can only be achieved through a political solution, not military power…”

A Reuters correspondent in the travelling State Department press corps tried to press Abbas to specify what it would take to resume talks with Israel. The answer from Abbas was: “These talks are not a luxury, they are something very important”.

Nobody in Ramallah asked about the Vanity Fair article — though while the journalists were waiting for the press conference to begin, a colleague from Japan’s NHK television said Rice had been asked about it at a press conference in Cairo this morning, though her answer was not clear. (We later learned, from the U.S. State Department transcript of the Cairo press conference, that Rice said she had not – yet – read the Vanity Fair article which was already being widely circulated on the internet, but she was able to add that all the blame should be put on Hamas.)

The first (pre-approved — by Muqata’a press officials) question in the Ramallah press conference was from a Palestinian reporter who asked: “Can you tell us where negotiations stand now, because nobody sees any results?”

Rice replied: “We’ve been very active the last several days” and went on to add that the present problems can be blamed on Hamas “starting with the illegal coup”. Abbas said nothing.

Several of the minor characters in the Vanity Fair story were present in Rice’s entourage at the Muqata’a in Ramallah today - Elliot Abrams, along with David Welch, as well as Consul in East Jerusalem, Jacob Walles

The Vanity Fair article had reported that the magazine “has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war. The plan was for forces led by [Muhammad] Dahlan, and armed with new weapons supplied at America’s behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power. (The State Department declined to comment.) … Instead of driving its enemies out of power, the U.S.-backed Fatah fighters inadvertently provoked Hamas to seize total control of Gaza. Some sources call the scheme ‘Iran-contra 2.0′, recalling that Abrams was convicted (and later pardoned) for withholding information from Congress during the original Iran-contra scandal under President Reagan”…

Ma’an News Agency reported Wednesday that Dahlan denied some of the allegations made in the Vanity Fair story.

The Vanity Fair article also reported that “Some analysts argued that Hamas had a substantial moderate wing that could be strengthened if America coaxed it into the peace process. Notable Israelis—such as Ephraim Halevy, the former head of the Mossad intelligence agency—shared this view. But if America paused to consider giving Hamas the benefit of the doubt, the moment was “milliseconds long,” says a senior State Department official. ‘The administration spoke with one voice: “We have to squeeze these guys”. With Hamas’s election victory, the freedom agenda was dead’.”

And, there’s more. The Vanity Fair article also said that “At the end of 2006, Dayton promised an immediate package worth $86.4 million—money that, according to a U.S. document published by Reuters on January 5, 2007, would be used to ‘dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism and establish law and order in the West Bank and Gaza’. U.S. officials even told reporters the money would be transferred ‘in the coming days’. The cash never arrived. ‘Nothing was disbursed’, Dahlan says. ‘It was approved and it was in the news. But we received not a single penny’. Any notion that the money could be transferred quickly and easily had died on Capitol Hill, where the payment was blocked by the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. Its members feared that military aid to the Palestinians might end up being turned against Israel. Dahlan did not hesitate to voice his exasperation. ‘I spoke to Condoleezza Rice on several occasions’, he says. ‘I spoke to Dayton, to the consul general, to everyone in the administration I knew. They said, “You have a convincing argument”. We were sitting in Abbas’s office in Ramallah, and I explained the whole thing to Condi. And she said, “Yes, we have to make an effort to do this. There’s no other way”.’? At some of these meetings, Dahlan says, Assistant Secretary Welch and Deputy National-Security Adviser Abrams were also present”…

Just as they were present in Ramallah again on Tuesday.

The theme of Hamas-is-to-blame and Hamas-is-responsible was repeated throughout Rice’s meetings and comments during the trip – only President Abbas refrained from comments in this direction, exhibiting unusual restraint on this topic.

On Wednesday afternoon, Rice told journalists in a press conference in Jerusalem with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni that “There are enemies of peace that will always try to hold hostage the Palestinian cause and the future of the Palestinian people for their own state. And Hamas, which in effect, holds the people of Gaza hostage in their hands, is now trying to make the path to a Palestinian state hostage to them. And we cannot permit that to happen”.

Earlier on Wednesday, as the Israeli Security Cabinet was meeting on the situation in Gaza (the Security Cabinet later announced it had decided to continue Israeli military operations against Hamas in Gaza), Rice held a second meeting with Palestinian negotiators (Ahmad Qurei’/Abu Alaa’, and Sa’eb Erekat).

A spokesperson for the U.S. Consulate in East Jerusalem later confirmed to this reporter that this meeting was indeed held in the U.S. Consulate in East Jerusalem Consulate – a move with some weighty symbolic significance, as the PA has been insisting on Israel “reopening Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem”.

Palestinian President Abbas, who was not present at the meeting in the U.S. Consulate in East Jerusalem, said again on Wednesday morning – before his abrupt change of mind – that “The negotiations must be started, but after the truce … Once the truce is achieved, the road will be open for negotiations”. He also said that Rice told him she would send an envoy (Assistant Secretary David Welch) to Egypt, and that “there are real efforts being exerted by Egypt for the truce”.

A spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv confirmed that Welch went to the airport to head back to Cairo around mid-day Wednesday, even before Rice concluded her private meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

One result announced by Rice, in a press conference with Livni after their meeting, is that Welch would be going to Egypt “to look at the entire situation in the Gaza. We have been working all along with Egypt and with Israel, and indeed with the Palestinian Authority, to deal with the situation that has obtained in Gaza since Hamas’ illegal takeover there. That means security issues, it means humanitarian issues, it means trying to do something about the tunnels which continue to be a problem”.

There is still no indication of any deal near on the important issue of reopening the Gaza-Egyptian border at Rafah – which was breached to the world’s astonishment in a spectacular break-out by Palestinians from Gaza on 23 January. After a few days’ multi-million dollar shopping spree, the Gazans returned home to life under an otherwise near-total blockade, and subsequently under renewed Israeli attack.

It was Rice herself who had been able to engineer the break-through, in November 2005 – after staying up all night, in Jerusalem, and on her birthday – that resulted in the agreement on movement and access which allowed the Rafah crossing to open with PA personnel, plus the physical presence of European Union monitors and a real-time Israeli security supervision via video camera from the Kerem Shalom some kilometers to the south.

The Israeli Security Cabinet said, rather cryptically, in a statement issued after the conclusion of its meeting on Wednesday morning that the Israeli government would work “To reduce the strengthening of Hamas, including in coordination with – and by – Egypt“.

Earlier in the week, Reuters reported that “Israeli and European officials said one proposal under consideration would seek to open the Rafah border crossing to cargo, expanding on its former role for travellers only. Israeli defence officials said that could be acceptable to the Jewish state as a way of limiting its responsibility for supplying Gaza’s 1.5 million residents. But Egypt opposes any attempt by Israel to shift the burden, Western diplomats said … Javier Solana, the EU’s foreign policy chief, told reporters in Jerusalem his bloc’s border monitors were ready to return to Rafah after a nearly nine-month absence provided any agreement includes Egypt”.

Solana was visiting President Abbas in the Muqata’a on Tuesday just an hour before Rice arrived.

The other result announced is that Lt. General William Fraser, who traveled to the region with Rice’s party and departed with it as well, will be holding what the Americans are calling a “trilateral” – a meeting Fraser will chair with Israelis and Palestinians participating – to review where things stand concerning the “Roadmap obligations” that both Israelis and Palestinians are supposed to fulfill. Rice stressed several times that both sides have a long way to go in this respect.

Rice also indicated, several times, that there needs to be improvement in the lives and situations of Palestinians on the ground.

Fraser’s “trilateral” will be next week, probably Thursday, (and not this week as the Israeli press has reported). A spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv confirmed that Fraser will be returning in a few day’s time.

Rice told journalists traveling with her on the plane, according to a transcript released by the U.S. State Department, that “the report is to me, and it wasn’t a judgment on Roadmap obligations, it was sort of his first take on what needs to be done”.

It would appear, from Rice’s use of the verb’s tenses, that Fraser’s report has already been written and presented (to her, at least), and the conclusions it draws would then most probably have already been at least mentioned during her visit.

Rice continued, “But I expect that he will clearly talk directly to them [both parties – Israelis and Palestinians] about what needs to be done and ways to get it done. I don’t personally like the term ‘judge’ very much, because it sounds like somebody who sits above and hands down decrees. This is more an iterative effort of working with the parties to see if we can’t really make some group movement on these Roadmap obligations, and that’s how I expect Fraser will carry it out”.

So, the question now is — what’s she gonna do about it?

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said at a press conference in Washington on Friday that “We have told the Israelis repeatedly that the settlement activity is both against U.S. policy and against the Roadmap obligations. And I would note that my understanding is that even the Israelis themselves have taken some decisions that suggest that they understand the seriousness of this issue”.

Sometimes, at the press conference, the questions were more interesting than the answers:

Question: Are you prepared to see any old Palestinian state declared before the end of the Bush term or must it meet certain conditions or requirements of functionality and transparency and so on?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, one reason that the roadmap obligations are so important is that they point toward a Palestinian state that would actually be able to govern, would be able to fight terrorism, would be able to deliver for the Palestinian people. And so, that’s one reason that we believe the implementation of any agreement would be subject to fulfillment of the obligations of the Roadmap. It’s hard to imagine a Palestinian state coming into being and living side by side in peace and security with Israel, unless both sides have met those Roadmap obligations and I think they’re pretty much embedded there. But we’re not just stating that as a principle, we’re actually, with Tony Blair and with the Paris donors conference and with what is being done by General Dayton and by General Jones, we’re actually working actively with the Palestinians to build that capacity.

And so of course, you’re going to want to have a Palestinian state that is capable of governing, that has proper security forces, that is transparent. The good news is that across the board, people admire the leadership of this government and believe that these are transparent people who are not given to wanting to use violence and who are trying to build a modern and democratic state.

One of the most important documents, and if you haven’t read it, I would recommend it to you, is the document that Salam Fayyad presented at the Paris donors conference, which is a comprehensive plan for the establishment of a transparent, democratic, rule of law governed Palestinian state. It is going to take some time for that state to fully achieve all of those goals, but I do believe that the prospect of statehood, the reason that it is important to have a political process that ends in an agreement, is that it’s not going to be possible, I believe, for them to deliver on what they want to deliver on, which is in that document, unless there is a prospect for — a real prospect for a state.

QUESTION: The reason I ask this, only because there is some smart money that holds that basically, the President and the Secretary of State are going to countenance the declaration of some kind of Palestinian state before they leave office just as something they can hang their legacy hat on and if it looks very much like the Palestinian state that we have right now, that’s for their successors to deal with. Can you disabuse us of that?

SECRETARY RICE: Jim, as I’ve said, there are a lot easier ways to build a legacy than to try to solve the Palestinian-Israeli issue.

Yeah …

QUESTION: Yeah, my question is only one part. I just wanted to ask you about President Bush’s upcoming trip. Why did you guys calculate this was the time to go to Israel and the Palestinian territories? And what specifically are you looking for as an outcome of the trip? Do you plan to offer any U.S. proposals possibly to bridge the gaps or is this not the right time for that?

SECRETARY RICE: We have yet to see where the parties are. They’ll meet again on the 23rd of December. I suspect they may meet even again before the President gets there. But this is really to lend support to their efforts, to talk, to see if, through the conversation, we can help them to find perhaps where there are points of convergence that sometimes, parties, when they’re negotiating, don’t see. But I think it’s early to try and set a specific set of tasks for the President when he’s there.

I do believe that his going, in and of itself, will continue to give some momentum to the process. When the President is coming to the region, people tend to want to be moving forward, not standing still, and so that in itself will have, I really do believe, an important effect.

QUESTION: This is (inaudible) from Al Arabiya. Is the — 2008 – a target for your Administration to reach a final settlement in between Israelis and Palestinian or you are just happy of supporting the two parties to get into the process?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, 2008 is a goal of the parties to reach agreement, so it’s our goal too. And we will want to try to help them to get there, but if I look back over the last year, I really do think that the launching of permanent status negotiations was not to be taken for granted. At the beginning of last year, I don’t think that the prospects for actually getting to permanent status negotiations looked very good. Now that they are there, there is a certain momentum; there is a certain premium on succeeding. And I do believe that you will see very serious efforts on the part of these two leaders who have now staked a lot on completing this agreement, to try to do what they can, everything they can to complete it. And we’ll be a part of that process with them”.