Another day, another violent riot in the West Bank. Luckily the US State Department knows just how to fix things:

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says she still hopes to reach a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians in the next three months. Rice Tuesday told a U.S. conference on business investment in Palestinian areas that she "will leave no stone unturned" in an effort to resolve long-standing problems before U.S. President George Bush's term ends in January. Rice has visited the region multiple times - including eight trips this year to Israel and the Palestinian territories - to get a peace deal.

Well, they do say that the ninth time is the charm. So fingers crossed. Things are also progressing nicely on the security assistance front, where US pressure has pushed Israel into allowing 700 armed Palestinian soldiers to swarm over Hebron. As usual this is under the auspices of abject failure Keith Dayton, who has yet to meet a Palestinian soldier he didn't want to arm and train. The problem is that these brilliant plans for creating stability keep going awry - something that he naturally blames on Israel. In other words: he's a typical State Department foreign policy expert, albeit a little more vicious than most.

The awesome thing is that these soldiers will be under Hamas's political direction in about 3 months. Then they'll be able to use their US-supplied weapons and training to do for the West Bank what they've done for Gaza:

The transformation of the Gaza strip into another Afghanistan is a future whose first casualty will be the Palestinians... The Gaza strip has been transformed into a potential land mine due to the poverty, repressions and the proliferation of arms. moreover, Hamas has shown that it won't unleashing its fury against the Israelis but rather against Egypt and its borders, they have become a real danger to the Egyptians, which is what we have seen with the breach of the Gaza-Egypt border.

And you just know that somehow this is all going to end up being Israel's fault.

References:
* Troops shoot Palestinian fire-bomber [JPost]
* Rice Pledges Pursuit of Mideast Peace Until Term Ends [VOA]
* Israel to allow 700 additional armed PA troops into Hebron [Ha'aretz]
* Fatah Weapons Champion, Abject Failure Keith Dayton Said Nablus Was Fatah's "First Real Test" How's That Going? (Plus: Dozens Of Fatah Soldiers Building Rockets, Targeting Israelis) [MR]
* Smug Condescending Sophisticates Admit They've Been Lying Through Their Teeth About Israeli Security II - State Department Admits That Their Fatah Security Assistance Is An Abject Failure [MR]
* Memo To Foreign Policy Sophisticates - You'd Sound A Lot Less Stupid If You Stopped Mixing Your Condescension With Demonstrably False Fantasies Of Competence [MR]
* Gaza: Following Afghanistan's Footsteps

Previously:
* State Department Ready To Pull Entirely Predictable Anti-Israel Bait And Switch On Har Dov
* Sunday Link Dump - The State Department Blows, Etc.
* State Dept: Sure Abbas Just Said That Palestinians Should Invade And Overrun Israel, But How About We Give Fatah Some More Weapons And Military Training? (Plus: Hamas Closer Than Ever To West Bank Takeover)