Word: palestinians
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...Although on her latest Middle East shuttle she managed to persuade Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to agree on holding regular meetings, Rice's efforts to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace are looking more like crisis management than visionary deal-making. She had hesitated to spell out exactly what she meant by "bold outreach," but had urged the Arab leaders heading for Riyadh to not merely to endorse a formula for peace - the Arab League's Beirut initiative, first adopted in 2002, calls for full peace and normalization of relations if Israel withdraws from Arab lands...
...Olmert was right: it sounded like spin. The implication, of course, was that Abdullah would be pleasantly surprised. But it was an implication impeded by an impossible precondition: that somehow the Saudis would first be able to get the Hamas-led Palestinian government to renounce terrorism and recognize Israel. "It's not going to happen," a member of Olmert's Cabinet told me. "Hamas is getting money and training from Iran. Its militant wing, where the real power lies, is based in Damascus. The Saudis have no influence over them." And the Israelis will have no truck with Hamas. Indeed...
There is another grand gesture open to Olmert, but it dare not speak its name--mostly because the U.S. doesn't want it to happen. Various Israelis have been quietly talking about opening peace talks with Syria--which actually does have some power over the Palestinian extremists, since it allows the militant wing of Hamas to be based in Damascus. The deal seems obvious: Syria gets back the Golan Heights. Israel gets recognized. Hamas gets the boot. Two years ago, Syrian President Bashar Assad told me he wanted to reopen talks with the Israelis. When I asked Olmert about Assad...
...Advisers to Abbas say he was tipped off by intelligence reports recently that Hamas may quit the unity government and resume attacks against Israel. These sources say Abbas was supposed to pass this information on to Rice, but State Dept. officials deny that the secretary was informed of the Palestinian government's possible break-up and of the Hamas threat to resume attacks...
...Arab summit in Riyadh, Abbas is backing a revived Saudi initiative that offers Israel peace with all Arab nations if it returns to its pre-1967 war borders and allows thousands of Palestinian refugees to return home. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says he is open to some aspects of the plan, but not the "right of return" for Palestinians since they would swamp the Jewish state. The Saudis urged Israel to accept, or else. Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said, "If Israel refuses, that means it doesn't want peace. Then [the conflict] goes back into the hands...