Posted on 05/16/2004 11:42:55 AM PDT by yonif
The United States is ready to be a partner in helping Palestinians build their own state and will keep to plans to hand over power to an interim Iraqi government on June 30, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said Sunday.
In a German television interview, Rice also said she felt "great shame" about the abuse of inmates at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad but insisted it had not undermined US moral authority in the world.
Rice's comments came before talks in Berlin on Monday with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei, part of a renewed Bush administration effort to bring about Palestinian statehood sometime next year.
"The institutions of statehood need to get started now," Rice said.
She said she would tell Qurei that the US offer of partnership depends on the Palestinians' building "accountable political and economic institutions," including security services controlled by an "empowered prime minister" who can use them "to fight terrorism."
"We are ready to be full partners with the Palestinians in doing that," she said. "We need movement from the Palestinians on those elements of the road map."
Flying in from talks in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the next steps to bring stability to Iraq, Rice was to discuss the same theme with national security advisers from European nations over a private dinner in Berlin.
US administration officials said Rice would be focusing on the scheduled June 30 transfer of power to an interim Iraqi administration, the need for a new U.N. Security Council resolution and increased international participation.
In the interview, Rice said the planned handover from the US-led occupation authority to an interim Iraqi government in six weeks' time was on track.
"It is absolutely critical that we keep our word to the Iraqi people that on June 30 they will receive sovereignty," she said. "Iraqis are every day regaining control over their affairs."
With the handover, "they will be fully sovereign in making their own decisions, and that is it should be," she said.
In addition to meeting with her British counterpart, she was also to meet with national security advisers from other European nations including France and Germany.
Both countries opposed the US-led war on Iraq but are now working closely with others to come up with a Security Council resolution to endorse the caretaker government that U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is trying to create.
In her talks with Qurei, Rice is expected to build on Saturday talks in Jordan between the Palestinian prime minister and US Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Powell urged Qurei to seize the opportunity for the dismantling of Israeli settlements in Gaza and some on the West Bank under a proposal offered by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Qurei was noncommittal in his public statements afterward, but Powell said the prime minister, on whom the Bush administration has pinned much of its hopes for a reversal in lagging peace efforts, had agreed to look at whatever refinements Sharon makes in his proposal to evacuate all soldiers and the 7,500 Jewish settlers from the coastal strip following its rejection by hard-liners in his own Likud party.
Palestinians Laughing at American Dead in Iraq, Media Watch Group Says
For the Mahdi Army, it's the 'glory of jihad' [PLO Arab terrorists sent to Iraq to murder Americans]
Kaddoumi: PLO charter was never changed [back the Iraqi terror; happy Israel will leave Gaza]
Poll: 59% of Palestinians support continuation of terror after state is created
Arabs Brutally Murder Jewish Mother and Her 4 Children
Ping.
Israel should just annex the whole lot.
Then they should tell Condi to go pound sand.
The "roadmap" contains many conditions, and the Palis have yet to meet even one of them. Not a single one. In fact, they're probably constutionally incapable of doing so.
There'll be no Palistate. All this talk is just another in a decades-long series of attempts to (temporarily) calm down the Islamist nutballs and their European enablers.
The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Israel) will not have His will and plans for Israel and the land He promised either thwarted nor even frustrated! The United States could reap the whirlwind if our leaders continue to, as David said: "Why do the nations rage, And the people plot a vain thing?
the kings of the earth set themselves, And the rulers take counsel together,
Against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying, "Let us break Their bonds in pieces And cast away Their cords from us."
Because David also goes on to say: "He who sits in the heavens shall laugh;
The LORD shall hold them in derision. Then He shall speak to them in His wrath,
And distress them in His deep displeasure: "Yet I have set My King On My holy hill of Zion."
The United States government and the U.S Department had better take heed to this warning. We don't want to be caught fighting against God.
Should have annexed it in 1967.
They're not required to. One of the fallacies of the road map is that it didn't require any quid pro quo's. Pali's fail in their obligations, no matter, Israel is obligated to meet their obligations anyway. One of the 14 conditions Israel attached to the road may required both sides to meet their obligations, but it's unclear if even the US accepts that idea.
Creation of a new terrorist state may well be US policy. After all, the administration feels we've "embarrassed" ourselves in front of the Arab world, thus the apology to the King of Jordan for actions in Iraq. We have to do something to make up for it, or they'll be angry. They might behead an American, or incinerate several, or use an airplane as a missle. I'm sure if we atone, they'll leave us alone.
At the very least, these issues should have been settled before "peace" was declared with Egypt. The Arab refugees could have been resettled in the Sinai, geographically an outstanding place to make a "state".
It doesn't matter if the U.S. accepts that important condition Israel attached to the map. The condition exists regardless.
We need Hitlery in charge of US negotiations in the Middle East....She gives the best hugs, as shown by her affection toward Yasser and his beloved wife.
I demand to know from Rice when the United States will withdraw from Aztlan, and return the states of Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, California and Utah to Mexico! END THE OCCUPATION OF AZTLAN!
[/sarcasm]..makes about as much sense as the "Road Map"
Does Condi Rice realize that these people don't need no steenkin' roadmap? If we can't grow enough testicular fortitude and support the right side, then can we just shut up?
I couldn't even reply to the post about us recognizing Arafat as a leader. Hitler and Uncle Joe Stalin were leaders too.
Ughhhh....
It is also written that God promises to bless those that bless His people Israel and to curse those that curse His people Israel.
What could be more of a curse or more like a cursing than to ask [perhaps pressure is more like it] Israel to give away to "Trans-Jordanians" and terrorists (those committed to the total destruction of Israel and all Jews) the land promised by God to Israel and their descendants forever?
So, as it also says "I place before you this day life and death, blessing and cursing..." Which will this administration choose?
Does anyone really believe that Palestinian terrorists will behave any better with a State of their own? I just do not believe it at all.
Never. The Sinai is part of Israel and the "refugees" could be settled in 26 other Arab states.
According to DEBKA, the administration is very quietly overhauling the higher ranks of the State Department. VP Cheney and NS advisor Rice are spearheading the project.
Rice is assured of taking over as secretary of state in the second Bush administration and is building a "new" State Department that will get behind the President's Iraq policy and hammer home his Greater Middle East Initiative for spreading democratic reform around the Arab world.
The first department attacked by Cheney and Rice is the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs....its director, assistant secretary of state William Burns, has already received notice of his reassignment late summer as the next US ambassador in Moscow.
David C. Welch, who is current American ambassador to Egypt has had a rough ride in Cairo, will take over from Burn at State, where as a non-Arabist he is unique.
DEBKA 155 [reported] outgoing Iraq administrator Paul Bremer's plan to occupy this position in a John Kerry administration.....George Mitchell [under a Kerry administration] thinks he has a stronger claim on the job...Another possible claimant is Richard Holbrooke, Clinton's ambassador to the UN and the moving force behind the decision to invade Kosovo in 1999.....He called what was happening [Abu Ghraib/Iraq] "The most serious setback for the American military since Vietnam."
Something that tends to be ignored on most of these threads. The whole Palestinian situation would have been avoided had they been "allowed" by their Arab brothers to immigrate to the other Arab nations. Instead, they have been forced to live either in the disputed lands or in pathetic refugee camps...breeding terror.
The Palestinians are more the victim of the Arab world, as a tool against Israel, then they are a victim of Israel.
Whilst i think that the Israeli's should allow a Palestinian state on there own terms i think that bringing the bible as justification for the middle east "issue" is counterproductive and irrelevant. A free Israel is the sole reason for America's help... if Israel was a Jewish theocracy it would be cut off from American aid. If in the unlikely case the Arabs also allow a free state they have a right to exist side by side. Supporting a free Arab state ( what are the odds ??) wouldn't be fighting against god but doing his work.
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