When Condoleezza Rice was settling into her new job as America's top diplomat in 2005, she brokered her first substantive deal between Israelis and Palestinians that she touted as "a major step forward."
Under the agreement, Israel was supposed to remove West Bank road blocks, allow more people and things to get in-and-out of Gaza, set up a bus route through Israel between the West Bank and Gaza, and allow Palestinians to begin building a port in Gaza.
The deal, for a myriad of reasons, pretty quickly fell apart.
At this point, it is pretty much moot.
Today in Jerusalem, more than two years after declaring the major breakthrough, Rice announced that Israel had agreed to remove 50 dirt berms in the West Bank to make life easier for Palestinians.
That announcement will not even reduce the number of West Bank road blocks to the level it was at in 2005 when Rice announced the breathrough deal.
According to United Nations figures, Israel has added more than 60 new West Bank road blocks and obstacles since the deal was announced. The figure now stands at 580.
The United Nations has been monitoring implementation of the deal (you can see their regular reports here) and basically nothing has moved forward.
Today, Rice said she had learned from the failure of the 2005 agreement that it was difficult to have peace talks without making daily life better for Israelis and Palestinians, and that it was difficult to make daily life better for Israelis and Palestinians without having peace talks to provide a glimmer of hope.
Are peace talks offering a glimmer of hope?
Considering the track record, few people around here are optimistic. But Rice echoed the message of Israeli leaders who have suggested that the fact that negotiators have kept mum about their talks should be not be read as a sign that talks are going nowhere.
“The fact that they don’t rush to the microphones every day to talk about what each other said and try to characterize the other said and back the other side into a corner is a very positive development,” said Rice.
Time will tell.
On the security front, sitting down with Rice today at the David Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem required none of the over-intrusive security measures recently employed for events with US VP Dick Cheney and Israeli PM Ehud Olmert.
One US official went out of his way to jokingly point out to me that no strip searches were employed.
But that left me wondering: Why is there tighter security for Cheney and Olmert than for Rice? Why isn't Rice entitled to having dodgy reporters strip searched before they get to see her in Jerusalem? Is it because Rice is a woman? Is it because she is African-American?
Hmm...
UPDATE: You can read a transcript of Rice's sit-down with reporters after the announcement was made here.
Unless you've been blabbing all over Jerusalem about your 'dropping trou', I would also wonder which 'US officials' were following your blog and why.
I mean, sorry, it's a fabulously, information-filled and funny-at-times, attention-grabbing blog, but ... to have an official go 'out of his way' to make that comment to you ...
Other than that, your questions are valid although we do know Dick is EXTREMELY security-minded going so far as to remove any reference to his personal data and domicile from the internet and making standard, everyday memos 'Classified' or 'Secret'. Perhaps it's personnel preference based?
Posted by: Edie | March 30, 2008 at 02:14 PM
Maybe the reason Rice did not require the "overly intrusive" security screening that Cheney and Olmert did is ... that it isn't necessary. Could that be possible? After all, the accredited journalists are not unknown, or uncleared.
Posted by: Marian Houk | March 30, 2008 at 07:01 PM
Maybe the reason Rice did not require the "overly intrusive" security screening that Cheney and Olmert did is ... that it isn't necessary. Could that be possible? After all, the accredited journalists are not unknown, or uncleared.
Posted by: Marian Houk | March 30, 2008 at 07:03 PM
yes it is because she is black and a woman.
Posted by: john | March 31, 2008 at 07:12 AM
The Cheney incident caught the attention of people, one of whom grilled US and Israeli officials about security policies for a story she wrote, which is how it came to the attention of both governments.
Getting into Rice briefings has never required the overly intrusive measures recently employed for Cheney and Olmert.
Since we all go through a standard vetting to get our Israeli-issued press cards, you would think that would be enough in most cases.
Posted by: Dion | March 31, 2008 at 08:55 AM