Mere Rhetoric: Yawn. Another Condi Trip To The Middle East (Plus: Cabinet Excuse For Releasing Palestinian Murderers Not Overly Sound)

Abbas just announced that Fatah will never make peace until Israel releases thousands of terrorists that Israel will never release. Not that Abbas really matters since Hamas is increasingly prepared to make good on their promise to roll the West Bank. Which helps to explain why in the last few weeks they've all but ruled out peaceful reconciliation with Fatah - why negotiate when you can take? And as an FYI to those others of you who've been reading the international press for the last couple of year years, no, Hamas is not really going to accept Israel.

But luckily, the State Department is here to help:

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged Monday that it will be difficult to reach a year-end target for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, but said the two sides and the United States remain committed to that goal. Flying into the region on her seventh trip since the goal was set nine months ago at a US-hosted peace conference, Rice said she would press the parties to secure even small, incremental steps and not dwell on producing documents that demonstrate partial progress. There has been speculation the Bush administration wants the Israelis and Palestinians to sign onto an interim statement before the UN General Assembly meets in New York in late September, but Rice suggested that was unlikely and the two sides were not at that point.

I know that a lot of people get pretty upset about how Rice keeps flying to Jerusalem to try to coerce Israel into making concessions. But honestly - at this point - isn't the real frustration that it's just kind of a pathetic waste of taxpayer money?

What's she going to do? Pressure Israel to release prisoners with blood on their hands so that the Palestinians will make peace with them? As if that's not already being done on the much dumber argument that decreasing Israel's leverage over Hamas will somehow "accelerate the negotiations over Gilad Shalit".

References:
* 'No peace unless all prisoners freed' [JPost]
* 'Hamas has built up a force of 20,000' [JPost]
* Hamas: When We Said That We're Going To Overrun The West Bank As Soon As Abbas Gets Land And Weapons, We Were Just Joking [MR]
* Officials: Cairo talks unlikely to reconcile Hamas and Fatah [Ha'aretz]
* Climbdown as Hamas agrees to Israeli state [Guardian]
* Hamas: negotiations with Israel out of the question [Xinhua]
* US secretary of state lands in Israel to push ME peace process [JPost]
* Israel to free 199 jailed Palestinians on Monday - Haaretz - Israel News [Ha'aretz]