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In Israel, Rice does the limbo

By Uriel Heilman · August 27, 2008

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met in Jerusalem on Aug. 26.

Visiting Israel this week, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice is trying to figure out what Israel’s state of political limbo means for the Palestinian-Israeli peace process.

To her dismay, she’s discovering it means the Bush administration is unlikely to see any progress of note during the remainder of Olmert’s – or Bush’s – term.

Here’s Barak Ravid’s analysis in Ha’aretz:

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may have arrived in Israel with the intention of advancing talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, but her meetings have also dealt with trying to understand Israel’s political limbo.

An Israeli government source said a key issue Rice’s aides discussed with their Israeli counterparts was what happens the day after the Kadima party primary.

U.S. officials were trying hard to understand the constitutional ramifications of the Kadima race. They discussed Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s role in an interim government and whether he could carry out significant political decisions. Rice’s aides concluded that it is highly likely that Israel will not have a stable new government before the end of 2008, around the time the Bush administration comes to a close.

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Iran’s ‘praposel’

By Uriel Heilman · July 22, 2008

Here’s the proposal Iran offered at nuclear talks in Geneva: A lot more talking.

The Iranian proposal, ”The Modality for Comrehensive Negotiations (None paper),” was riddled with spelling errors, elicited laughs from the Russian deputy foreign minister and dismay from the U.S. secretary of state, according to The New York Times.

The paper proposed seven more meetings, but no talk of halting uranium enrichment.

“Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Iran on Monday that it could not continue to ‘stall’ and she warned of more sanctions if it defied a two-week deadline to accept the proposal,” the report said.

Meanwhile, the Times’ Helene Cooper suggests that the White House’s approach to Iran, a member of the so-called axis of evil, is schizophrenic:

A senior administration official described the Iran policy as “erratic,” while a European diplomat said, “It does seem a bit schizophrenic.”

Abbas Milani, an Iran expert at Stanford University who has advised the Bush administration, echoed the sentiment. “I don’t understand what they’re doing,” Mr. Milani said. Ms. Rice’s “provocative acts and words” on Monday could derail any chance that Iran’s leaders might reward the Bush concession on talks by suspending uranium enrichment, he said…

Some national security hawks have been sharply critical of the latest moves toward Iran and North Korea.

“The metaphor to look at is intellectual collapse,” said John R. Bolton, the Bush administration’s former ambassador to the United Nations. “It’s not even a carefully staged retreat. Instead, it’s just a sign to the Iranians that toward the end of the administration, they’re desperate to sign deals.”

2 Comments | Share This | Condi, Iran, Politics

Rice stands firm on Palestinian elections

By Ami Eden · June 12, 2008

Over at JTA Election Central, we posted on Liz Cheney’s not so veiled swiped at the Bush-Rice policy of pressing for the Palestinian elections that culminated with a Hamas victory. Josh Marshall of TalkingPointsMemo linked to our post, under the headline ”All in the Family,” referring to Cheney’s vice-presidential dad.

Well, later in the week at the AIPAC conference, a Cheney family cousin (Barack something or other) also took a swipe at the Bush administration over the issue:

We must isolate Hamas unless and until they renounce terrorism, recognize Israel’s right to exist, and abide by past agreements. There is no room at the negotiating table for terrorist organizations. That is why I opposed holding elections in 2006 with Hamas on the ballot. The Israelis and the Palestinian Authority warned us at the time against holding these elections. But this Administration pressed ahead, and the result is a Gaza controlled by Hamas, with rockets raining down on Israel.

Rice is sticking to her guns. Here’s what she had to say about the topic in a recent essay that she wrote for Foreign Affairs:

When Hamas won elections in the Palestinian territories, it was widely seen as a failure of policy. But although this victory most certainly complicated affairs in the broader Middle East, in another way it helped to clarify matters. Hamas had significant power before those elections – largely the power to destroy. After the elections, Hamas also had to face real accountability for its use of power for the first time. This has enabled the Palestinian people, and the international community, to hold Hamas to the same basic standards of responsibility to which all governments should be held. Through its continued unwillingness to behave like a responsible regime rather than a violent movement, Hamas has demonstrated that it is wholly incapable of governing.

Much attention has been focused on Gaza, which Hamas holds hostage to its incompetent and brutal policies. But in other places, the Palestinians have held Hamas accountable. In the West Bank city of Qalqilya, for instance, where Hamas was elected in 2004, frustrated and fed-up Palestinians voted it out of office in the next election. If there can be a legitimate, effective, and democratic alternative to Hamas (something that Fatah has not yet been), people will likely choose it. This would especially be true if the Palestinians could live a normal life within their own state.

The participation of armed groups in elections is problematic. But the lesson is not that there should not be elections. Rather, there should be standards, like the ones to which the international community has held Hamas after the fact: you can be a terrorist group or you can be a political party, but you cannot be both. As difficult as this problem is, it cannot be the case that people are denied the right to vote just because the outcome might be unpleasant to us. Although we cannot know whether politics will ultimately deradicalize violent groups, we do know that excluding them from the political process grants them power without responsibility. This is yet another challenge that the leaders and the peoples of the broader Middle East must resolve as the region turns to democratic processes and institutions to resolve differences peacefully and without repression.

0 Comments | Share This | 2008 Election, Condi, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Blaming Condi

By Ami Eden · December 6, 2007

Here’s the reworked ”column” version of my blog post on right-wingers who slam Condi but can’t bring themselves to say a negative word about Bush.

Well, here’s a great example: Aaron Klein, author of “Schmoozing With Terrorists,” writes about U.S. aid in the territories being used to attack Israelis, and blames it all on Rice – as if she doesn’t work for the president.

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Interview with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

By Ami Eden · November 13, 2007

Click the play button below to listen (or read the transcript).

[audio:/images/archive/rice_eden_nov_13_2007.mp3]

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3 Comments | Share This | Annapolis, Condi, GA, Podcast