Replies

Secretary Condoleezza Rice Briefing warns against Israeli sanctions against Gaza

http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=36117

En Route Andrews Air Force Base

“innocent Gazans who, through no fault of their own, are in Gaza with the
Hamas in control of it — they [Israelis] really must be very sensitive to,
aware of, and — aware of the humanitarian and other considerations that any
action that they take would bring about.”

Briefing En Route Andrews Air Force Base
Secretary Condoleezza Rice
En Route Andrews Air Force Base
September 20, 2007
www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2007/09/92522.htm

SECRETARY RICE: I thought it was a very useful, productive day and a half.
It would have been very good to be able to stay longer but I obviously have
to get back for the United Nations General Assembly. And I expect to have a
number of meetings at the United Nations General Assembly that relate to the
work that we’re doing to support the Israeli-Palestinian bilateral track and
also to get ready for the international meeting. I’ll have a meeting of the
AHLC, which is the — essentially the group of donors for the Palestinians.
I have a number of bilaterals related to this issue. There will be a Quartet
meeting. So there’s a lot of activity in New York and it was useful to be
here to inform the discussions that I’m going to have in New York.

I found the meetings here very good because there’s clearly a kind of focus
and commitment on behalf of — on the part of both of the leaders as well as
the people who are working most closely with them to try and get this
document done. I also found that they are using the prospect of the
international meeting as a time when they would really like to be able to
have the international community second or affirm and support the efforts
that they’re making. So I think these two are working very much
synergistically.

I am looking to when it would be most useful to come out again. There are a
number of holidays to contend with, both Israeli and Islam holidays. But in
any case, I thought it was a very useful set of meetings and I look forward
to the meetings that will build on that when I’m in New York.

QUESTION: You spoke a bit more about the document on this trip than we’ve
heard before. Can you flesh that out a little bit for us? What do you expect
the document itself to do? Is it fair to call it an agreement? Is it
something that both sides will sign?

SECRETARY RICE: I think it’s better to think of it as a joint statement. I
don’t want to try to give it a name because I think they will name it at
some point. But really what they’re trying to do is to address the issues
that they have been addressing in their bilateral discussions to, in a
sense, memorialize understandings that they have been coming to and are
going to try to come to. It’s clear that they are going to address the core
issues that relate to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

I think we’ll have to — they’re going to have to have a few sessions
between their negotiating teams to really set the parameters of this
document. But I expect that after they’ve done that, after they’ve had a
chance to have several of those sessions, that that would be a good time to
come out and see if there’s anything more that we can do to be helpful.

QUESTION: Just very quickly on the document, do you want to see some kind of
timeline, some specific benchmarks, you know, along the lines — there was
something like that on the roadmap and kind of got away from it — but just
on this issue of Gaza. The President was saying that if some kind of action
was taken it could harm the discussions, it could sour the atmosphere and,
you know, kind of cast doubt on Israel’s intentions. Could you talk a little
bit about how you see that and whether you really think that something like
this could be an impediment with realities — Israel having to respond to
realities on the ground?

SECRETARY RICE: On the first question, I don’t really expect that this
document that they would have would have timelines. I think that’s not the
intent, although if they come to that agreement that would be fine, but
that’s not what I’m expecting.

In terms of what — the Israeli decision concerning Gaza, let me just
emphasize a couple of things. First of all, they haven’t decided on any
specific actions and they’ve been very clear that they have to look at
legality, they have to look at issues of humanitarian impact and so forth.

Secondly, I don’t think — given that they haven’t decided on any specific
actions, I think speculating about what the impact might be isn’t really
something that I wish to do. The way that we see it is that, obviously,
there is a problem. The rocket attacks need to stop from Gaza and,
obviously, Hamas is the responsible — is responsible at this point, or has
declared itself responsible in Gaza as a result of what the Palestinian
leaders have called a coup d’etat. And they’re doing nothing to stop the
rockets.

Now all of that said, the United States has a very clear policy about Gaza.
It is an indivisible part of the Palestinian territories. It will be a part
of the Palestinian state. President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad are the
legitimate authorities for the entire Palestinian Authority. And one thing
that I emphasized several times with the Israelis is that we are very
concerned that innocent Palestinians not suffer humanitarian consequences as
a result of any action that they take. Because the problem is Hamas; the
problem isn’t the people of Gaza. So I don’t want to speculate on how it
might affect this or that, given that the Israelis haven’t even taken any
steps.

QUESTION: (Off-mike)

SECRETARY RICE: No. Remember what I’m saying is that we recognize the
indivisibility of those territories and he is the person who is the
legitimate authority. Now there is an “illegitimate authority,” in quotes,
in Gaza at this point, which is Hamas, which in a coup took the streets, so
to speak, from the legitimate authorities, from the Palestinian Authority
security forces and so forth.

So clearly, right now, the people who have established control in Gaza are
the illegitimate Hamas people. But I just want to emphasize what I
emphasized with the Israelis, is that innocent Gazans who, through no fault
of their own, are in Gaza with the Hamas in control of it — they really
must be very sensitive to, aware of, and — aware of the humanitarian and
other considerations that any action that they take would bring about.

QUESTION: Secretary Rice, it’s been really interesting to watch this process
because you’ve seemed to pick your way really carefully in how you
characterize what this conference is trying to establish and what the goals
of these — this conference is. You used terms like common set of principles
and that sort of thing, which is why it was sort of weird today when Abu
Mazen got up there and he just listed it right out: Jerusalem, borders,
settlements. Was it refreshing to hear him lay it out like that or does that
make your job more difficult when you go back to the Israelis?

QUESTION: How do you feel about that?

QUESTION: And how do you feel about it? (Laughter.)

SECRETARY RICE: It doesn’t make my job more difficult. Everyone knows that
there are a set of issues that are going to have to be resolved if there’s
going to be a Palestinian state and these are among them. The only reason —
the only thing that I’ve been emphasizing is that they’re not the only
issues that have to be resolved. Security has to be resolved. It has to be a
security concept that works for the new Palestinian state and for Israel
and, for that matter, for the Palestinian neighbors. For instance, Egypt
borders Gaza.

There will have to be understanding about economic relations, about
resources. There are a number of issues that have to be resolved. But no one
doubts or is trying to hide that those issues are also going to have to be
resolved.

QUESTION: Madame Secretary, you spoke about a joint document addressing the
issues, et cetera. What is the difference between this document and the
roadmap? Why this should work and the roadmap failed? What is the
difference?

SECRETARY RICE: Sylvie, I wouldn’t say that the roadmap has failed. It’s
still in place. And one thing that I talked with both parties about is,
there are a set of roadmap obligations, particularly in the first phase,
that are going to have to be fulfilled if a Palestinian state is ever going
to work. You know, you’re going to have to deal with Israeli settlements.
You’re going to have to deal with dismantling the infrastructure of terror.
So the roadmap remains a kind of set of guidelines that will ultimately get
us to a Palestinian state.

I think that what really this does is — recognizing that there is a
sequence of obligations that will have to be fulfilled to get to a
Palestinian state so the Palestinian state can actually be operational —
there is nonetheless now a willingness to talk about what that state will
look like, what its contours will be, what its composition will be, and in
the original roadmap that was at the end of the roadmap. And I think that
what has really happened is that there’s a recognition that in order to give
a sense of reality and concreteness to particularly Palestinians that their
state is going to be real and it’s going to be viable, that that
conversation, those discussions, have to take place now.

So waiting until all of the obligations of the roadmap are fulfilled and
then starting to talk about that, which some had taken to be the sequence in
the roadmap — I think we’ve kind of gotten over that barrier to going ahead
and having these discussions. That’s really the major difference.

QUESTION: (Off-mike.)

SECRETARY RICE: I think a timeline isn’t wise at this point. We’ll see if
one is helpful later, but it isn’t wise at this point. But I don’t want to
leave the impression that the roadmap has been pushed aside. I think it’s
going to — it’s still a reliable guide to a lot of the obligations that
have to be met. And I think both of the parties really do understand that.

QUESTION: In your discussions with Prime Minister Olmert, were you very
specific as to how you think the Israelis can avoid a sort of humanitarian
disaster in Gaza if they do impose some of their restrictions that they’re
talking about?

And then secondly, you’ve been going back and forth, I think it’s six times
this year. Do you really think the Israelis are committed this time? And
from a personal perspective, how has it changed? I’m not asking you how you
feel, by the way. (Laughter.)

SECRETARY RICE: No, we leave that question to Helene. (Laughter.)

First of all, we didn’t get into details about humanitarian issues, but I
just wanted to be very clear that this is of deep concern to the United
States. We’ve worked very hard on the humanitarian side there and we want to
be able to continue to work very hard on the humanitarian side. And as I
said, they haven’t taken any measures. The Israelis themselves said that
they would weigh any measures regarding potential humanitarian consequences.

As to the six times out here, a lot has changed since that February
trilateral in that cavernous room in the David Citadel. You’ll remember that
that was not long after the Mecca agreement. You’ll remember that the
tensions were pretty high and that one of the reasons even to have the
trilateral was that I didn’t think that they would meet at all had we not
met in a trilateral format.

You’ll also remember that we were using at that time the very carefully
guarded phrase “political horizon” to try to point toward the direction
where I think we’ve now landed. And these things take time and you have to
be persistent. And I think that this last several months — a lot has
happened. What Hamas did in Gaza obviously has had an effect on both sides.
But also there’s been a process through the bilateral discussions of
building confidence between the two leaders. And everybody now talks about
the excellent atmosphere between them, the rapport indeed between them. I
think they are building some trust. I think that the government of Salam
Fayyad is demonstrating that it intends to act, that it even intends to act
on some of its roadmap obligations, for instance, what he did and what the
government did in shutting down some of the charities that really have been
a front for terrorist financing. So yes, I think this has come a very, very
long way from that trilateral.

QUESTION: (Off-mike.)

SECRETARY RICE: Yes, maybe — well, I don’t know. Do you go over a horizon?
I really don’t know. Let me put it this way: I know there was some
skepticism about the term “political horizon” and what it meant. I think
that what happened is that it gave an umbrella, it gave a context in which
they could begin to discuss issues that have not been discussed for six
years. Now they’re openly saying that they are discussing core issues and
that they would like to try and memorialize those understandings in a
document. I think the announcement of an international gathering sometime in
the fall has helped to galvanize people to try to move forward. And you know
we’re going to take equal care in planning the meeting, in consulting with
people about how it might be successful and in getting to that point,
because all of this needs to lead to a set of steps that gets them closer to
the negotiation of a Palestinian state.

QUESTION: Good afternoon. Madame Secretary, this is Brian Bennett from Time
Magazine. I would like to ask you to put your efforts at diplomacy between
the Israeli and Palestinians in the Iraq context. And would, in your view,
gains in this arena have a positive impact there in Iraq as far as getting
the neighbors to have a more positive role in Iraq? And is Iraq a motivating
factor? Obviously, there are lots of motivating factors, but is Iraq one
motivating factor in your current efforts at diplomacy in Israel and
Palestine?

SECRETARY RICE: First of all, this is a conflict, the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, that needs to be resolved for its own reasons. It’s gone on a
really long time. The Palestinians have been without a state for a really
long time. There are generations now of Palestinians who’ve kind of come and
gone while the promise of statehood has been held out but hasn’t been
fulfilled. And I think that that has been really not good for Palestinians,
it’s not been good for Israelis and it’s not been good for the region.

In that context, as you look at the evolution of the Middle East to a Middle
East which has a foundation of real stability rather than, I think, the kind
of false stability that — held in place, you know, with Syrian forces in
Lebanon, Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq, et cetera — without any
willingness to speak straightforwardly about the need for liberalization and
democratization of politics in the Middle East reform. That false stability
I think was producing no channel for — or limited channels for legitimate
political expression and helped to contribute to the emergence of extremism
in its most radical and virulent form being al-Qaida.

When you contemplate a Middle East that is different and that is evolving
toward a really stable Middle East — an Iraq that is out of Saddam
Hussein’s — has overthrown Saddam Hussein and finds a way to overcome its
differences peacefully rather than violently, that is really at the center
of the Arab world a multiethnic or multi — at least, multiconfessional
democracy, a Lebanon that — where its young democracy is able to function
without foreign interference, and a Palestinian state, are all of a piece.
And I think it’s telling that whenever I meet, for instance, with the Gulf
Cooperation Council and Egypt and Jordan, the discussions are most often
about all three: Iraq, the Palestinian state and Lebanon — support for
Lebanon. So I do think they are all of a piece. And one encourages and
reinforces the other. But the truth of the matter is it’s hard to imagine
the kind of Middle East that I think we would like to see, and it’s going to
take a while to get there without resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict.

QUESTION: (Off-mike)

SECRETARY RICE: They do not link them. They don’t say we won’t do this - and
it’s because they have interests in a stable Iraq, too. But it’s not a
matter of linkage; we won’t help you here if you don’t help us there. But it
is that all of those who need to be involved in building this different kind
of Middle East recognize that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has got to be
resolved if it’s going to be a reality.

2005/T16-5

Released on September 21, 2007