Rice to Meet Israeli, Palestinian Leaders

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, shown with Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul in Latvia, travels to Israel and the Palestinian territories today. (By Virginia Mayo -- Associated Press)

DEAD SEA, Jordan, Nov. 29 -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the Palestinian Authority's president, Mahmoud Abbas, as part of a U.S. effort to demonstrate progress on the Israeli-Palestinian peace effort.

Rice will travel to Israel and the Palestinian territories shortly after attending meetings between President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Amman, Jordan. Then she will travel to this Jordanian resort for a conference designed to promote Palestinian democracy.

U.S. officials say the renewed attempt to promote peace between the Israelis and Palestinians is separate from efforts to bring stability to Iraq. But Rice's trip comes as U.S. officials have sought to persuade moderate Arab states to support U.S. endeavors in Iraq. Arab leaders have signaled that they expect the United States to demonstrate progress on building a Palestinian state, in part to assuage regional anger at the Iraq war.

In the past week, Palestinian factions have indicated support for a cease-fire intended to end rocket attacks on Israel, and Olmert outlined steps to foster peace. Under pressure from the United States, he offered to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners if an Israeli soldier held in Gaza was released.

But U.S. officials predicted no major breakthroughs from Rice's visit. The Palestinians are pressing for a return to final-status negotiations, such as determining the border between the Israeli and Palestinian states, while Israelis are demanding that Abbas take action against armed Palestinian groups. Many nations, including the United States, have blocked funding for the Palestinian Authority until Hamas, the radical Islamic movement in control of the authority's ministries, agrees to recognize Israel.

The renewed emphasis on Middle East peace marks a shift for the Bush administration. Before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, some neoconservatives predicted that the fall of Saddam Hussein and the establishment of an Iraqi democracy would help foster peace in the Middle East, arguing that in effect the road to Jerusalem traveled through Baghdad. Now, experts say, the administration is acknowledging that the path toward stabilizing Baghdad leads through Jerusalem.

A senior State Department official, briefing reporters Wednesday night, said he felt uncomfortable with the nostrum that solving the Israeli-Palestinian crisis could be achieved by toppling Hussein -- and with the idea that the plights of Iraq and the Palestinians were still linked. "I don't like the idea of lumping these things together," he said on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the State Department.

Still, the official acknowledged that there was a "core of moderate Arab support" for action on the Israeli-Palestinian front and that the administration was trying to exploit that.

After Rice talks with Israelis and Palestinians, she will meet here with foreign ministers from the predominantly Sunni Muslim countries that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council, including Saudi Arabia, and from Egypt and Jordan. The official said the interests of the United States and these nations are "broadly similar" on a range of issues, including concern about the growing power of Iran, a Shiite Muslim state.