Rice Heads to Mideast to Buttress Palestinian Leader

Ray · 10-02-2006, 10:42 AM

Quote:

Rice Heads to Mideast to Buttress Palestinian Leader

By PHILIP SHENON
Published: October 2, 2006

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice departed Sunday for the Middle East, on a trip billed by aides as an effort to bolster the embattled Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, in his struggles with the militant Islamic group Hamas, and to consult with Arab allies on Iran’s nuclear program and the turmoil in Iraq.

The State Department sought to play down expectations for Ms. Rice’s trip, her first to the region since an agreement brokered by the United Nations ended the one-month war between Israel and Hezbollah this summer.

During her last visit, in July, Ms. Rice was criticized by Arab leaders for failing to move quickly to try to end the violence then raging along the Israeli-Lebanese border.

The State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, said this week’s trip, scheduled to begin in Saudi Arabia and to include stops in Egypt, Israel and the West Bank, was not likely to produce any major steps forward for American policies in the Middle East.

“These meetings are more about consultations, taking stock of where we are,” he said.

On her visit to the West Bank, she is expected to meet with Mr. Abbas, his third meeting in less than three weeks with Bush administration officials.

During meetings in New York last month on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, President Bush praised Mr. Abbas as a “a man of courage” for his efforts to make peace with Israel and bring order to the Palestinian territories.

But the United States has signaled it has no plans to resume financial aid to the beleaguered Palestinians unless Hamas, which won elections in January and controls the government, takes steps to recognize Israel and forswear violence — moves that the group’s leaders have rejected, despite pressure from Mr. Abbas.

In remarks last week to the editorial board of The New York Times, Ms. Rice praised Mr. Abbas, saying he needed time “to sort through what he wants to do.”

Despite her absence from Washington, Ms. Rice seemed most likely to be dogged from a distance this week about descriptions of her actions in a new book by the reporter Bob Woodward, especially about his report that Ms. Rice rebuffed warnings from the Central Intelligence Agency two months before the Sept. 11 attacks about an imminent strike by Al Qaeda.

Mr. Woodward said the starkest warnings were made in a July 10, 2001, meeting in the White House between Ms. Rice, then the national security adviser, and George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence. Through spokesmen, she has rejected Mr. Woodward’s account of the meeting, saying Mr. Tenet did not issue such a blunt warning at the meeting and expressed none of the frustration attributed to him in the book.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/02/wo...html?ref=world

It is important that Abbas somehow should gain importance in Palestinian politics over the Hamas.

However, the USA is not very fondly remembered in Palestine.

Would it backfire for Mr Abbas?

If so, what is the end result?

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