The United States Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, said on Sunday night that Israel had ”hard decisions” to make to create the correct environment for peace and a Palestinian state, as she began a two-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories.
She said too that the Palestinians had to fight terrorism and create political institutions to prepare for statehood.
Rice’s visit precedes the first high level meeting between Israelis and Palestinians for more than 18 months. She will not attend tomorrow’s summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, but she met Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, on Sunday and will meet Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, and other officials today.
The success or failure of the Middle East peace process is likely to be determined by the extent of US participation. In President George Bush’s first term, the administration concentrated on Afghanistan and Iraq but Rice’s visit is seen as an indication of US interest in re-starting the process.
”I most especially want to bring the personal commitment of President Bush and my own personal commitment to this process, because this is a time of opportunity and it is a time that we must seize,” Rice said at Israel’s foreign ministry.
According to the US embassy in Tel Aviv, Rice will discuss both sides’ commitments to the road map, the Bush-sponsored peace plan which was unveiled 18 months ago but faltered soon after.
She will push Israel to honour its commitments to dismantle illegal settlement outposts in the West Bank and carry out other confidence-building measures to boost the credibility of Abbas.
Silvan Shalom, the Israeli Foreign Minister, told Rice that their main concern was the disarming of militants before serious peace negotiations could begin.
Speaking on Israeli television, he said he told Rice: ”If the Palestinians do not do everything to halt the smuggling of weapons through tunnels, close the tunnels, close the weapons workshops, gather up illegal weapons — we would simply be giving the violent groups time to regroup and then carry out terror attacks that could collapse the whole process.”
After her meeting with Shalom, Rice said: ”We will ask of our partners and our friends in Israel that Israel continues to make the hard decisions that must be taken in order to promote peace and … the emergence of a democratic Palestinian state.”
Palestinian officials will brief Rice about the effect of the separation barrier and request support for their demands, including freeing Palestinian prisoners and easing travel restrictions.
Israeli and Palestinian officials quarrelled on Friday about the release of 900 Palestinian prisoners. Israel planned to release mostly criminals, while the Palestinians wanted the release of long-held militants. Officials continued to meet to work out a compromise.
In an interview with BBC’s Breakfast with Frost on Sunday, Rice praised Abbas and said that the international community should help him build the economy and institutions required for a future Palestinian state.
”The Palestinians will need help in bringing together … and unifying their security forces. They will need help in building the institutions that will become the foundation of a state.
”They certainly need help in economic reconstruction, in reconstruction, job creation, doing something about the terrible plight of the Palestinian people that really the intifada has worsened.”
She said that Israel should not do anything to prejudge the final borders of a Palestinian state, adding that ”this route, the route of this fence, should do everything that it can to ease the plight of the Palestinians, not contribute to it”.
At the same time as Rice’s visit, the EU is offering financial help to encourage peace. Its external relations commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, is to meet Sharon and Abbas on Monday.
She spoke of a ”promising start” to improve relations after the death on November 11 of Yasser Arafat, but added that ”further bold actions are necessary on both sides”.
These included an orderly Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, a halt to all violence and the release of Palestinian prisoners.
Rice arrived in Israel from Turkey.
In Ankara she said the US wanted help from Turkey and other countries to ”sustain the momentum” toward Middle East peace, and called for the end of ”incitement of anti-Jewish violence”.
”Israel deserves to live in peace in the Middle East and the Jewish people deserve the respect of their neighbours,” she said. – Guardian Unlimited Â