Secretary Rice visits Israel/Palestine for the 7th time this year

Secretary Rice has been a frequent traveler to Israel/Palestine in the recent past (17 times in the past 2 years), and she is now in the middle of another visit in an attempt to broker an agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians by the end of 2008. Read her remarks with Israeli Foreign Minister (and now Acting Prime Minister) Tzipi Livni here and with Mahmoud Abbas here. Settlements, unsurprisingly, continue to be a thorn in the side of all three parties; PeaceNow, an Israeli pressure group, released a report shortly before Secretary Rice's visit documenting a rise in settlement activities relative to this time last year. (Almost twice as many new buildings are under construction as there were in the first half of 2008). Rice said, in her press conference with Livni, that the settlement activity was “not helpful” but pointed out that negotiations were proceeding despite it. Abbas and Livni were slightly more pointed in their comments; Livni said 

“… the peace process is not and should not be affected by any kind of settlement activities. I mean, at the end of the day, we are talking about the future borders of the Palestinian state, considering more than 40 years we are talking, plus minus, about the same blocks of settlements, and this is part of the negotiations. And as I suggested also to my co-partners on the Palestinian side, to try — and I understand that sometimes (inaudible) and sometimes how does it affect on different parts of Palestinian society. But at the end of the day, the role of leaders is to try and find a way to live in peace in the future, and to avoid any kind of — not to let any kind of noises that relate to the situation on the ground these days to enter the negotiations room. I mean, it could have been easier also for me to use some excuses, and to say that this affects my ability to negotiate. But I decided not to do so, even in harder days of terror. So I would like to suggest my co-partners not to use it as an excuse. And I know that they are not using it as an excuse, but I understand the frustration sometimes.”

Abbas, later on the same day, made the following comments:

We have focused also on the settlement activities that continue, that are ongoing, and that are undoubtedly an obstacle, a main obstacle in the road of the peace process. And as you all know, we reject all the settlement activities in principle because they contradict with the agreements and the Roadmap plan and the objectives of Annapolis that have started one year ago , almost one year ago.

So, Rice has got her work cut out for her. As Fareed Zakaria said, no one has ever lost money betting against the peace process. There is one interesting new development, though , Rice has appointed Lt. Gen. Will Fraser to oversee the progress of the Roadmap. He's established a system for quantifying the impact of each of the roadblocks up in the West Bank/Gaza and East Jerusalem, ostensibly so that the most disruptive roadblocks can be removed first. Sean McCormack discusses this in greater depth at DipNote, the State Dept's blog.