Rice gets earful on Mideast peace

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday implored Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for help moving stalled peace talks with Israel toward their final stage.

Meeting with Rice during her five-day tour of the Middle East, Abbas said he was willing to push ahead to final negotiations “in back channels, in open channels, in secret channels, any way it can be achieved,” said Saeb Erekat, a veteran Palestinian negotiator, who sat in on part of the discussions.

Erekat said Rice listened during the two-hour meeting at Abbas’ offices in the West Bank city of Ramallah, but left without promises.

Rice’s trip, her third to the region since October, comes at a time when a number of Arab and Israeli peace proposals are circulating and the United States is under pressure from allies to produce results.

Yet there is skepticism among many Israelis and Palestinians, as well as outside observers, about the prospects for progress and the seriousness of the Bush administration’s commitment.

Though there have been reports that the U.S. team is casting about for a bold new approach, many observers doubt progress is likely at a time when Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert are both politically weak and the Palestinian government is divided by factional fighting.

A U.S. commitment

Rice said as she continued her tour that she had neither proposals nor plans, but was ready to intensify her involvement.

“We have heard loud and clear the call for deeper American engagement,” she said in Ramallah. “You will have my commitment to do precisely that.”

Rice said it was time “to look at the political horizon and begin to show to the Palestinian people how we might move toward a Palestinian state.”

She met Saturday with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Amir Peretz, and on Sunday with Abbas and King Abdullah II of Jordan. She met early today with Olmert before flying to Egypt for further meetings on the Israeli-Palestinian issue as well as on Iraq and Iran.

Early today, Israel reported that its military had shot two Palestinians said to have been crawling toward the border fence in the Gaza Strip, the Reuters news agency reported.

The two were carrying explosives, which were detonated by the gunfire, the Israeli army told Reuters.

At the moment, the most visible proposal is that of Livni, who has called for the two sides to begin discussing what a final peace settlement would mean for the Palestinians.

The Israelis and Palestinians are working from the so-called road map peace plan, which calls for both sides to carry out steps in three stages, with the goal of creating a Palestinian state.

But the talks have bogged down over tough issues in the first stage, including requirements that the Palestinians forswear violence and recognize Israel and that the Israelis freeze settlement activity in the West Bank and dismantle unauthorized outposts.

Livni says that although she does not want to skip the first stage, she believes if the two sides begin discussing the outcome, it can motivate Palestinians to make tough decisions required beforehand. Her plan calls for setting up a transitional Palestinian state, within temporary borders, before a final deal.

But Abbas firmly rejected that idea Sunday during a news conference in Ramallah. He said he told Rice that the Palestinians would refuse “any temporary or transitional solutions, including a state with temporary borders, because we do not believe it to be a realistic choice that can be built upon.”

Palestinians fear a temporary border would exclude West Bank land now occupied by Israeli settlements and eventually become permanent.

But a senior U.S. official, talking to reporters later Sunday, suggested that the Palestinians might be more flexible about a transitional state if they became convinced that it would lead to independence.

“I wouldn’t exclude that they might go for that idea, under certain circumstances, as they move through the road map,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. “There may be a way station on the way.”

Abbas is also unhappy, said one aide, that his talks last month with Olmert had not yielded the results he expected. The Palestinian leader had hoped they would open the way for the Israelis to turn over about $100 million in tax revenue, lift some West Bank roadblocks and checkpoints, and begin discussions aimed at freeing prisoners.

The money has not been released, and there has been little progress on the roadblocks or on talks about the prisoners, said Mohammed Edwan, a spokesman for Abbas.

Hamas-Fatah struggle

Another major obstacle to the peace talks is the struggle between Abbas’ Fatah party and the militant Islamic movement Hamas, which won elections last January and has held most Palestinian power since March. The two sides have been stymied in efforts to set up a joint government that could win international support.

But Hamas and Fatah said Saturday that they made “significant progress” in resolving their differences during secret talks that began in Syria two weeks ago after violence that claimed 35 lives.

Olmert, meanwhile, is facing low approval ratings in polls and criticism for his government’s handling of the war with the Islamic militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon last summer.

Effi Eitam, a member of the parliament, or Knesset, expressed sympathy for Rice’s efforts to sort through the welter of peace plans.

“I feel sorry for Condoleezza Rice,” the lawmaker said on Israel Radio. “In the last 24 hours she’s heard five peace plans. The defense minister supports the Saudi initiative, the foreign minister wants to skip phases in the road map; the strategic affairs minister has a new plan ... and we have yet to hear from the prime minister.

“In short, one big mess,” she added.

paul.richter@latimes.com

boudreaux@latimes.com