Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA:

"We don't want Israel to do anything that would make Israel feel like it put
itself at jeopardy or risk," the official said.

Does this mean they will stop pressing Israel to drop security in the West
Bank?]

US: Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip has helped Hamas
HILARY LEILA KRIEGER, TOVAH LAZAROFF and ETGAR LEFKOVITS , THE JERUSALEM
POST Jun. 2, 2008
www.jpost.com
/servlet/Satellite?cid=1212041458638&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Israel's continued blockade of the Gaza Strip is misguided and has helped
rather than harmed Hamas, a senior State Department official told The
Jerusalem Post on Monday.

The State Department is likely to convey its unhappiness regarding Israel's
Gaza policy to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert when he arrives in Washington
before dawn on Tuesday. His three-day visit will include a meeting with US
President George W. Bush and a keynote address to the annual AIPAC policy
conference.

"What we're telling the Israelis is that the policy that was adopted after
the summer [of June 2007] wasn't working, of really closing the borders,"
said a senior State Department official.

On Monday night, Olmert said that the "hour of decision" was approaching
regarding continued Palestinian rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, pledging
that the attacks, which have continued unabated for seven years, will be
stopped "one way or another."

"I said in the past that I prefer the path of dialogue, but as long as all
the steps we take do not lead to the hoped-for calm, we will be forced to
turn to the sword," Olmert said at the official Jerusalem Day ceremony at
Ammunition Hill, marking 41 years since the reunification of the capital.
"We will brandish it in a heavy, sharp and painful manner."

"I say to the residents of Sderot and the Gaza envelope: My heart and
thoughts are with you," he added. "You pay the ongoing price which effects
your way of life, primarily that of your children. The hour of decision is
approaching, after which you too will have the longed-for quiet. The threat
towards you will also be removed, one way or another."

The beleaguered premier, who is facing growing calls for his ouster in the
wake of the latest in a series of corruption scandals, made the remarks just
hours before he left for Washington in what could be his last visit to the
US capital as prime minister, and after months of on-again, off-again
negotiations for an Egyptian-mediated truce with Hamas have failed to bear
fruit.

Olmert arrives in Washington in the midst of a stiff diplomatic agenda that
includes peace talks with Syria and a 2008 deadline to come to a final
status agreement with the Palestinians. But he leaves Israel under threat of
a possible indictment for money laundering that has shaken his coalition and
left politicians scrambling to work toward new elections.

The senior State Department official said that Olmert's political situation
was a "challenge" but that the US remains "confident that there's broad
support within Israeli society for a two-state solution."

The United States, he said, was still looking for an agreement by the end of
Bush's term.

The peace process, he said, "is not just the work of one person."

"We remain positive about it, despite all the obstacles and challenges," he
said, indicating there are other challenges, not just Olmert's political
prospects.
Israeli media on Monday speculated that this could be Olmert's last trip,
with Channel 1 adding in that he had thought of canceling it.

But Olmert's spokesman Mark Regev refused to comment on the matter, stating
only, "We have a lot of work on the agenda that needs to be done and we want
to do that work."

Part of that work is likely to be new look at Israel's continued closure of
the Gaza borders to all but humanitarian aid and basic supplies. Hamas's
violent take over of the Gaza Strip in June 2007 suspended all border
agreements on movement and access.

Those agreements have been hard to implement in light of Hamas's refusal to
recognize Israel and given that there has been no agreed-upon body to
replace Fatah, which until last summer had controlled the border crossings.

Israel has held the opinion that a blockade of Gaza would also weaken
Hamas's hold on the strip.

But a senior State Department official told the Post that policy has
appeared to have backfired. Palestinian rocket attacks against southern
Israel have continued and Hamas is gaining strength due to popular
disaffection and Hamas can still get the resources it needs.

"Within Gaza, Hamas seems the least effected by the closure," he said.

A new approach must be found that "that wouldn't benefit Hamas... but to
find that new approach is very difficult because Hamas is in control."

Among the ideas US officials will kick around with Israel is a new look at
the possibility of monitors and the defunct agreement on movement and
access.

"You could envision Rafah being open under an agreement on movement and
access with EU monitors. But all of that requires in some ways Hamas's
acquiescence," he said.

He also called the idea of having some sort of international force between
Israel and Gaza a "creative idea."

Regev said he imagined that Gaza would be on the agenda with the US, as well
as the Egyptian brokered talks on a cease fire.

The State Department official told the Post that on the issue of a
cease-fire the US would like to see a new approach. He did not elaborate.

"We don't want Israel to do anything that would make Israel feel like it put
itself at jeopardy or risk," the official said.

Egypt, he said, has been playing a "constructive role," adding that Egypt
has been making "more of an effort" when it comes to smuggling.

According to Regev, other diplomatic issues such as the new developments in
Lebanon, Iran's nuclear threat and the newly publicized Syrian talks will
also be on the agenda.

At a State Department briefing on Tuesday, White House spokesman Sean
McCormack said that, if asked, the US would consider participating in the
talks, which until now have been brokered by Turkey. He added that no such
request had been made.

McCormack gave tacit support to the talks, which the US had opposed in the
past, when he said, "We have made very clear our views that if both sides to
this issue, Syria and Israel, would like to try to explore something, then
they should do so.

"The only admonition," he said, "is that that shouldn't be as a substitute
or in any way take away from the direct negotiations that are currently
under way on the Israeli-Palestinian track."