Abbas Won’t Resume Peace Talks

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, refused pleas from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to return to peace talks with Israel on Tuesday, frustrating Bush administration officials who say that Abbas is allowing Hamas to hijack the peace process through violence.

Abbas, a member of Fatah, the rival faction to Hamas, suspended peace talks Sunday in response to Israeli attacks that killed many civilians in the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by Hamas. Israel called the incursion a response to rockets that landed last week in Ashkelon.

Earlier, in Egypt at the start of her visit to the Middle East, Rice called publicly for Palestinian negotiators to return to the peace talks, saying that "rejectionists" in Hamas were hoping to subvert the peace process and that the Palestinian government should not let them.

"I understand that it has been a very difficult circumstance," she said, referring to the death toll in the Gaza Strip. "Innocent people should not have to die," she said.

At a news conference in Cairo alongside Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit of Egypt, Rice again supported Israel’s right to defend itself but added that she was concerned about civilian casualties.

In a pointed criticism of Israel, Gheit spoke of an "imbalance in the use of power."

Both Palestinian and U.S. officials said they expect Abbas to return to the negotiating table soon, in part because the peace talks are his biggest selling point with the broader Palestinian body politic. Hamas, which won the Palestinian legislative elections two years ago and seized control of the Gaza Strip last summer, is not part of the peace process.

"We need to continue to work to make sure that everyone understands that Hamas is doing what we expected – using attacks on Israel to try to arrest a peace process in which they have nothing to gain," Rice said. "We need to keep the focus on that."

Rice’s trip comes at a difficult time, as she is trying to keep peace talks on track. The Bush administration sees the talks as its best chance for leaving a foreign policy legacy that reaches beyond the Iraq war even as it finds itself in a predicament as it tries to broker a Middle East peace deal. As an example, Rice has steadfastly refused to use the term "cease-fire," even though several of the United States’ Arab allies, and even some Israelis, have said that a negotiated end to hostilities between Hamas and Israel is needed.

"I’m saying that we want the violence to stop," Rice told reporters on her flight Monday as she headed to Egypt. "Call it what you will."

Rice wants to avoid the word "cease-fire" because Bush administration officials believe that a negotiated cease-fire between Israel and Hamas would legitimize Hamas in the eyes of the Palestinian people. The United States and Israel view Hamas as a terrorist organization.

The fear, administration officials say, is that a negotiated cease-fire would most likely undermine Abbas and make it look as if Hamas is the entity with which Israel and the West should be negotiating, not Abbas. To counter that fear, Abbas has called for a cease-fire but has made sure to offer himself as the mediator in any negotiations between Israel and Hamas.