Worried Rice to discuss Gaza with Olmert in Japan
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent Last update - 07:19 22/02/2008
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/956934.html

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will meet with U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice while both are in Japan next week. The meeting was
requested by Rice. It is particularly surprising because Rice is due to come
to Jerusalem for a working visit the following week.

Government officials predicted that the meeting would focus on the situation
in the Gaza Strip, and said that Rice probably wanted to express her concern
over the humanitarian situation there.

General William Fraser, the U.S. envoy responsible for monitoring
implementation of the road map peace plan, visited Israel this week and met
with officials in the Prime Minister's Office, the defense establishment and
the Foreign Ministry. Fraser's job is to determine whether both sides are
fulfilling their obligations under the road map's first stage, which
includes evacuating illegal settlement outposts for Israel and fighting
terror for the Palestinian Authority.

A government official said that on his next trip, Fraser would present a
plan for how both sides should move forward on these obligations.

Haaretz has reported that the U.S. - like its fellow members of the Quartet,
the EU, UN and Russia - is increasingly unhappy with Israel's policies in
Gaza. Rice's deputy, David Welch, even told the last Quartet meeting that
the U.S. "is not comfortable" with Israel's operations in Gaza.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni responded to these sentiments at two different
diplomatic meetings Thursday, one with the Romanian foreign minister and one
with the EU envoy for the peace process, Marc Otte.

"Europe must understand that Hamas is not an organization that is interested
in setting up a Palestinian state," she told her Romanian counterpart. "It
is not seeking rights for the Palestinians; it wants to deprive others of
their rights."

"All indirect support for Hamas, even via discussions about opening the
[border] crossings or about the humanitarian situation, only weakens those
parties that are interested in reaching a [diplomatic] agreement," she said.
"The Palestinian people has no future with Hamas, and Israel will continue
to fight the terror that Hamas perpetrates."

At her meeting with Otte, Livni was even blunter. "Israel wants to advance
the diplomatic process, but we cannot allow ourselves to close our eyes to
the difficult reality of terror in Gaza," she said. "The international
community's desire to see a change on the ground sometimes leads it to
ignore the reality and is liable to [lead it to] push for compromises that
those who live here cannot permit themselves. Europe ought to understand
that it is either Hamas or the moderates."