Word: palestinians
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
After meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made no effort to hide his grim expression from his staff. From the Palestinian perspective, the talks hadn't gone well. Abbas had complained to Rice that an earlier chat and a bear hug with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, at the Secretary of State's behest, had only landed him in trouble with his fellow Palestinians. According to a presidential aide, he told Rice that "Olmert embarrassed me by not implementing a single Israeli promise...
...Olmert had vowed to release $100 million in Palestinian funds frozen by Israel after Hamas became the government last March. Olmert also promised to remove some of the more than 400 roadblocks inside the Palestinian territories. Israel has so far failed to deliver on either promise, according to Palestinian officials who spoke on condition of anonymity...
...week-long swing through the Middle East and Europe, Rice said that she sees an opening for peace between Israel and the Palestinians that has not existed for years, noting that recent statements by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signaled that "they're circling each other. And the question is, is this therefore a time to accelerate work on the roadmap, accelerate it in a way that doesn't just focus on today's issues- movement and security, movement and access-as important as those are, but starts to understand what the political horizon might...
...Although many experts believe the odds are overwhelmingly against Rice's efforts to broker a peace agreement and establish an independent Paelstine, given the weakened political positions of both Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud, Abbas, Rice insisted that she was "actually in a better strategic position certainly than... in '01, but maybe ... ever...
...Rice said that her journey was meant to listen to regional leaders and get to the question at the heart of the matter: "Can you really start to move in a way that gives you a chance to establish a Palestinian state?" Rice says she hopes to capitalize on the political unpheaval in the Palestinian territories and signs that Hamas' popularity is fading. "In some ways, the pressure on Hamas seems to be coming from inside the territories where the inability to govern because of the international embargo, which by the way when we started down this road people said...