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Rice: Lebanese Majority Should Rule

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Tuesday, 04 March 2008

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday the Lebanese majority should "rule" and stressed that the deployment of the USS warship Cole off the coast of Lebanon was to show support for "our allies." Her remarks came at a joint news conference in Cairo with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abul Geith. Rice declined to draw comparisons between Israel's response to the rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, considered disproportionate by much of the international community, and the war launched by Israel against Hizbullah in the summer of 2006 during which it refused to call for a ceasefire, sparking U.S. sympathy for Lebanon. "I do not think we want to start drawing parallels between what I consider to be two very different situations," Rice said. "But does the United States want to see the violence stop? Yes. And are we concerned about innocent people who have been caught in a crossfire in Gaza? Absolutely." Rice has stressed her confidence in success for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process launched in November at Annapolis, and blamed Hamas for the recent burst of violence in the Middle East. "I continue to believe that they can get to a deal by the end of the year if everybody has got the will to do it," Rice said overnight Monday in the plane taking her to Cairo, the first leg of a new Middle East tour, after the Palestinian president warned he was pulling out from all peace talks. "The Annapolis process is hardly underway. We are three months into trying to resolve a conflict that has been going on for 50 years," Rice told journalists accompanying her before making a stopover in Brussels. The secretary of state refrained for criticizing Israel over its Operation Hot Winter which claimed dozens of Palestinian lives in the space of two days in the Gaza Strip, including women and children, recalling Israel's right to defend itself. She blamed the radical Islamist movement Hamas for the worsening of the situation in the Gaza Strip, which has been under a strict Israeli blockade since January 17 in response to the firing of rockets at southern Israel. "I am going to have discussions with the Egyptians and with the Palestinians and the Israelis about how you might get violence to stop. But first and foremost Hamas needs to stop firing rockets into Israeli cities," she said. "As to the Israeli operation, I understand Israel's need to defend itself and the rocket attacks need to stop." "Obviously the situation in Gaza is one that is concerning," Rice went on. But ... we need to continue to work, first of all to make certain that everyone understands that Hamas is doing what might be expected, which is using attacks, rocket attacks on Israel to try to arrest a peace process in which they have nothing to gain." She called on the Israelis, however, to allow the resumption of humanitarian aid into Gaza, saying: "One always has to think, in carrying out military operations, about the day after." Asked several times about the possibility of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, Rice refused to use the word, saying: "Call it what you will. We want the violence to stop." Rice said she had made telephone calls last weekend to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, as well as to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Recalling that Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had committed themselves at Annapolis to reach an agreement on a Palestinian state before the end of President George Bush's mandate early next year, Rice called on them to surmount the obstacles and return to the negotiating table. "I do think that the negotiations ought to resume as soon as possible," she said. "I understand that the situation has been complicated. But the longer the negotiations are not ongoing or the longer they are suspended, if that is what one wants to call it, the more it is a victory for those who do not want to see a two-state solution." "It is going to have its ups and downs. There will be good days and bad days and even good weeks and bad weeks. But I am going to talk to the parties about staying focused," the secretary of state said.(AFP-Naharnet)

 

 

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