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By Guo Chunju, Yu Zhongwen, Xinhua
CAIRO - As U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice on Tuesday started her latest Mideast regional tour with the
aim to salvage the U.S.-sponsored peace talks between the Israelis
and the Palestinians, Arab experts and media here didn’t hold high
expectations on her visit to achieve tangible results to push
forward the stalled Mideast peace process.
Difficult situation
Rice’s visit to the Middle East region was
seen as a visit which comes amid a “very difficult situation as
the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts and attacks are deteriorating the
security situation in the Gaza Strip and Israeli cities as well,”
said Sayed Amin Shalaby, executive director of the Egyptian Council
for Foreign Affairs.
“Since the Middle East peace conference in
Annapolis, Maryland, in November 2007 relaunched the negotiations
between the Palestinians and the Israelis, no progress has been
achieved in the negotiations between the two sides in the past more
than three months,” Shalaby told Xinhua.
“What complicated the situation is that the
recent Israeli excessive military operations and behavior against
the Gaza Strip, termed as ‘Gaza Holocaust’ by Arab states,
prompted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to suspend peace talks
with Israel,” Shalaby noted.
He added that it was expected that Rice would
help persuade and exert pressure on Israel to stop its military
operations and attacks on Gaza and restart the peace negotiations.
Earlier reports said Rice is facing an uphill
task during the visit which came after a new round of violence
between Israel and the Palestinians.
Armed Palestinian groups on Tuesday continued
firing home-made rockets into southern Israel, one day after the
Israeli army withdrew ground troops from northern Gaza Strip.
On Tuesday night, Israeli army launched a new
raid on east of the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, after
the Israel military on Monday withdrew its ground troops from Gaza
and completed a five-day incursion in the Palestinian enclave that
killed more than 120 Palestinians and wounded hundreds of others.
Peace deal
During her visit to Egypt, the first stop of her
regional tour which also took her to Israel and the Palestinians,
Rice called on Israel and the Palestinians to resume peace talks,
saying she will work toward resumption of the negotiations of the
two sides as soon as possible.
Stressing the necessity of an active peace
process after her talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit, Rice urged Palestinian
militants to stop rocket fire against Israel, backing Israel’s
right to respond to the rocket attacks.
However, she added that Israel must avoid
causing civilian casualties when carrying out actions in response to
rocket fire.
During a joint press conference in the West Bank
city Ramallah on Tuesday with Rice, Abbas called for an
Israeli-Palestinian truce in order to achieve peace by the end of
this year.
Although both Rice and U.S. President George W.
Bush have expressed their optimism to achieve that peace goal,
Shalaby noted, “frankly speaking, it appears that the current
situation doesn’t make people expect the Palestinian-Israeli peace
deal can be achieved by the end of 2008.”
“However, if the Bush administration make
serious efforts to push the peace process, this goal might be
achieved, which depends on how much pressure they can make on
Israel,” he added.
The world needs a miracle to revive the moribund
Middle East peace process after the latest Israeli massacres in
Gaza, the local Egyptian Mail said in an editorial on Tuesday.
Hard to close ranks
Rice held the Palestinian armed group Hamas
responsible for the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza,
condemning its attacks on Israeli cities and calling for an halt of
the home-make rocket fires.
For his part, Abul Gheit condemned Israel’s
excessive use of force against innocent civilians, which is
unbalanced and unequal compared to Hamas attacks on the Israelis.
The Egyptian top diplomat also said Hamas was
“part of the Palestinian equation” and would have to be dealt
with in future negotiations “if they would mend their ways” to
renounce violence.
Hamas on Tuesday termed Rice’s visit to the
Middle East as unwelcome, noting that it serves the aim of
preventing Arab countries from responding to the help appeals from
the Gaza Strip and comes to rein in the state of solidarity among
the Palestinian people, as well as give more support to the Israeli
occupation to commit new massacres.
“Achieving national reconciliation between
Hamas and Fatah is essential for the negotiations both on the
Palestinians track and the Palestinian-Israeli track,” according
to Shalaby.
However, there are reports that the United
States covertly worked to oust Hamas after it won 2006 parliamentary
elections, breaking the decades-long hold on power of Abbas’ Fatah
movement.
In June last year, Hamas fought and routed pro-Abbas
security forces in Gaza Strip and seized control of the impoverished
territory, separating it from the West Bank where Abbas formed a
Western-backed government.
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