Rice Rejects Bush's Roadmap, Drops Demands That Palestinians Stop Terrorism Before Declaring State
Because things have apparently been going so well that it's time to reward the Palestinians:
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday reiterated that she prefers to see negotiations aimed at achieving a permanent, rather than provisional, Palestinian state. "My own view, and I frankly have been telling people this, [is] that if we get to that point, it seems to me that it may be more difficult to negotiate a provisional state than just to go to the end game" of final borders, Rice said. "We're not there yet, and we'll see."... Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni recently proposed establishing a Palestinian state with provisional borders based on the West Bank separation barrier. But the Palestinians are flatly opposed to this, fearing that the contested barrier will become the ultimate border.
Now of course, the idea of setting provisional borders is the second phase of the Roadmap, which calls upon the Palestinians to stop terrorism in the meantime. From there, the Israelis and Palestinians are supposed to move on to final status talks. The Palestinians would like to skip over that whole "stopping terrorism" nonsense and just have Israel give them a state anyway. And Secretary Rice's "own view" is that that's exactly what should happen.
Previously: Condi NYT Quote Fabricated? Not So Fast, State Department Anti-Israel Ideology Gets Silly, Kills Americans, Tell Us, President Abbas, How Can We Help You Today?
