Rice Is Optimistic On Gaza Gates
An Israeli-Palestinian agreement on Gaza border crossings is "in sight," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday, after holding separate meetings with leaders of both sides.
"If Palestinians fight terrorism and lawless violence and advance democratic reform, the possibility of peace is both hopeful and realistic," Rice said.
Reducing restrictions on the movement of cargo from Gaza into Israel, and opening the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt are considered crucial to efforts to revive the economy of the impoverished coastal strip. Israel and the Palestinians have been unable to seal a deal on the crossings since Israel pulled out of Gaza in September.
Israel wants to maintain tight security at the crossings to prevent militants and weapons from slipping through, while the Palestinians want to speed up the flow of goods to revitalize the economy and allow them freer movement.
In other developments:
International mediators presented a draft agreement on the crossings to Israeli and Palestinian officials late Sunday, with a request for rapid approval, an Israeli official said on condition of anonymity.
The proposal would include an Israeli commitment to allow 150 truckloads a day of Palestinian goods to pass through the Karni cargo crossing between Gaza and Israel, a large increase over the daily average of 35 trucks over the past six months.
At the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt, negotiations reached a deadlock over whether Israel should be able to follow traffic via live closed circuit TV transmissions. The Palestinians have balked at the demand.
Under a compromise, the live pictures would be transmitted to a liaison office with Palestinian, Israeli and European representatives, with the Europeans put in charge. Israel closed Rafah before leaving Gaza.
The draft also calls for a resumption of Palestinian movement — in bus convoys escorted by Israeli troops — between the West Bank and Gaza, starting Dec. 15. The so-called "safe passage" was in place for about a year before Palestinian-Israeli violence erupted in late 2000.
"A lot of these are highly technical issues, a number are complicated issues," Rice said of the compromise proposal circulated by international mediator James Wolfensohn.
"I believe that with will and some creativity, an agreement to what the envoy has proposed ... as a way forward should be within sight."
"The parties are making some progress," she said during a joint news conference with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
Abbas also expressed optimism.
"We are on the verge of reaching an agreement on this issue," he said.
However, Palestinian officials have said repeatedly over the past weeks that an agreement was imminent.
The international community wants a deal sealed well before the Jan. 25 Palestinian parliamentary election to boost the moderate Abbas, who is fighting off a challenge by the Islamic Hamas group.
Rice also expressed U.S. displeasure over the participation of the Islamic militant group Hamas in the upcoming elections.
"No democratic government can tolerate armed parties with one foot in the realm of politics and one in the camp of terrorism," she said.
The U.S. considers Hamas a terrorist organization, but Palestinian officials say the group's participation in elections is an internal Palestinian affair, reports Berger(audio).