For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
August 19, 2004

Remarks by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice Followed by Question
and Answer to the U.S. Institute of Peace
Washington, D.C. 19 August 2004
www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040819-5.html

...And America has worked to find a lasting solution to the conflict between
the Israelis and Palestinians. No matter who is in office, no matter from
what party, American Presidents have cared to try to find peace in the Holy
Land.

In doing so, we stand these days with the Palestinian people who seek
democracy and reform. After all, President Bush is the first American
President to call, as a matter of policy, for a Palestinian state. Yet,
because America supports Israel's desire for security, many in the Muslim
world seem to believe that America opposes the Palestinian desire for
freedom. This is a misconception that we must take head-on and dispel.
Because the truth is that our policy insists on freedom. The President
believes that the Palestinian people deserve not merely their own state, but
a just and democratic state that serves their interests and fulfills their
decent aspirations.

For its part, Israel must meet its responsibility under the road map and
help create conditions for a democratic Palestinian state to emerge. Israel
must take steps to improve the lives of the Palestinian people and to remove
the daily humiliations that harden the hearts of future generations. Along
with the vast majority of people who dwell in the Holy Land, Americans want
peace for this troubled region -- but we realize that there can be no
lasting peace for either side until there is freedom and security for both
sides.

....Finally, as to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I think there's a
general understanding on all sides that you have got to have two partners in
order to make this work. It is our belief -- and we are getting support for
that view from a number of quarters -- in the Quartet, in Europe -- that the
disengagement plan which Prime Minister Sharon has put on the table could
provide an opportunity to give a new spur to the Palestinian -- to a
possibility of a resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as long as
that disengagement plan from the Gaza is followed by further steps, which
the Israelis have said they're prepared to take.

Now, in order to do that, we do need leadership on the Palestinian side, as
well. And I think that the recent problem that we've been through in the
Palestinian territories where, really, lawlessness has broken out and where
the Palestinian Authority has not been able to deal with it, and where
Chairman Arafat's first idea was to appoint his cousin, or nephew as
chairman of the security forces, and where that was violently rejected by
the Palestinian people shows that there is growing discontent with a
leadership that has not been prepared to deal with the best aspirations of
the Palestinian people.

We remain committed to a resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. I
think the Europeans remain committed to that. Yes, we have degrees of
difference from time to time, but through the Quartet we've been able to
coordinate our policy, I think, in a quite effective way.

..
Q (Inaudible) -- the U.S. administration has had to deal with Israeli and
the Palestinian and they have an even-handed policy. Why do you find it so
hard to condemn the Israeli plan, because 1,000 new settlements? Do you
think that's mostly a (inaudible) --

DR. RICE: What we have asked of the Israeli government is to let us know
what it is that they are doing and what it is -- our policy on settlements
are very clear. We believe that the Israelis should live up to their
obligations under the road map. I might mention, by the way, the
dismantlement of settlements comes in the third phase of the road map. If
you get the disengagement plan from the Gaza, you will have dismantlement of
settlements early in the process.

And so we are very engaged with the Israelis on how they begin the
disengagement from the Gaza, the dismantlement of settlements there, the
dismantlement of settlements in parts of the West Bank. And we've been very
clear so that settlement expansion is not consistent with our understanding
under the road map.

Now, when I said that our policies were to -- were equally to try to find
peace and security for both sides, I do want to be very clear that the
President did make clear that he felt that it was time for a Palestinian
leadership that was ready to take up that challenge, and that was ready to
live up to its obligations under the road map. The fact is that we had, in
2000, an opportunity for a resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,
and the Palestinian leadership, for one reason or another, was unable to
take that opportunity. We have not been able to get back to that place
since. We tried in the Aqaba process to re-start that again, working very
hard with the then-Prime Minister of the Palestinian territories, Abu Mazen,
to put forward a set of steps that would be taken on the road to a final
status solution, to get back on the road map. Within a few weeks of Aqaba,
Chairman Arafat decided that he didn't want Abu Mazen around, and he
eventually resigned because he was not given the freedoms to do what he
needed to do.

Yes, the Israelis have obligations and the Israelis need to act on those
obligations because they need to end the occupation that began in 1967. But
the Palestinians have got to give them somebody to work with. And they've
got to embrace a leadership that does not believe that terrorism is a means
to an end. And they have got to embrace a leadership that believes that
democracy and transparency and good government deserve -- the Palestinians
also deserve good government and democracy and transparency. And that's what
we believe.

...
Q (Inaudible.)
DR. RICE: Well, we have, as you say, very good relationships with the
Egyptian government, we do. We have been very clear -- and, by the way,
Egypt has been important in a number of initiatives and is increasingly
important, for instance, in what we might be able to do in the
Israeli-Palestinian issue, and so Egypt is a good friend, has been an ally
for a long time and will continue to be.