Rice makes new push to revive Arab-Israeli peace hopes

By Sue Pleming

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice meets Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Monday in a bid
to revive the peace process that has been stalled by violence.

During breakfast talks with Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon,
she is expected to push him to do more to improve the daily
lives of Palestinians and to meet commitments in the
U.S.-sponsored “road map,” which include a freeze on settlement
building in the occupied West Bank.

“Israel should do nothing to try and prejudge final status
or the outlines of a final settlement,” Rice told reporters
traveling with her from Washington.

In a planned meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas, Rice was expected to pressure him to rein in militants
from Hamas, an Islamic militant group running in a January
Palestinian parliamentary election.

“You cannot build a democratic state and a foundation for
peace when you have organizations that remain armed and
constantly reserve the means to destroy that foundation for
peace,” said Rice.

Sharon reiterated on Sunday his stand that peace talks
could be held under the “road map” only after Palestinians
disarmed militants.

The United States, which says tackling the Arab-Israeli
conflict is a foreign policy priority, wants both sides to get
back on track with the “roadmap” for a Palestinian state
alongside a secure Israel.

Washington had hoped there would be agreement on getting
better access for goods and people into and out of Gaza by the
time Rice visited this week and that an announcement would
coincide with her visit.

U.S. Middle East envoy James Wolfensohn, the former head of
the World Bank, has been in the region trying to resolve
problems at the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt but there
are still some sticking points.

“We are very close but not quite there yet,” said one State
Department official of an agreement on the Rafah crossing.

Rice is hoping to build on the momentum from the successful
withdrawal from Gaza last September of Israeli troops. A spate
of bombings by Palestinians and counter-attacks by Israelis
crushed much of that optimism.

She says she believes democratic changes in other parts of
the Middle East could help revive the Arab-Israeli peace
process.

“We have hope for peace today because people no longer
accept that despotism is the eternal political condition of the
Middle East,” Rice was to tell a forum in Jerusalem.

During her one-day visit she will attend a memorial
ceremony to mark the 10th anniversary of the assassination of
former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

After visiting Israel, she will make a stop in Jordan to
pay her respects after last week’s hotel bombings which killed
57 people. She then travels to Asia where she will join U.S.
President George W. Bush for a meeting of regional leaders.