Let me say, first, a word about Gaza disengagement and the withdrawal that's going on. First of all, it is an enormously courageous decision on the part of Ariel Sharon and his government. And it is a decision that, in having talked to these people a lot, they took because they believe it is the right thing for the Israeli people and that it is going to improve the security of Israel.
I know, in having talked to them and watched how hard and I think everybody empathizes with what every Israeli has to be feeling and with people uprooting from homes that they have been in for a generation and the difficulty and the pain that that causes. And so I watched Prime Minister Sharon's address to the nation and it was really remarkable statesmanship.
And I just think we have to sometimes pause and think about what this means. It means that the father of the settlement movement, the Likud, Israel is ceding territory. And then, if you look at the other side of that, of course, it is also giving to the Palestinians an opportunity to breathe freely in Gaza, to live without the shadow of settlers and the Israeli army and to begin to build the institutions that are, I think, ultimately going to be the institutions for statehood, whether it is the security forces that are being reformed or the economic structures that I think will start to come into being, you know that Jim Wolfensohn has a significant plan for Gaza but it will be not just for Gaza, it really is for the creation of the basis for economic prosperity for Palestine.
And so -- and you can associate, at the same time, with the joy of the Palestinian people that there's a chance that life will get better and so this is a really quite dramatic moment in the history of the Middle East.
And it's very easy to kind of move on to the next thing, but if you stop and reflect and pause, it also helps you to see that because -- and, you know, and we all hope that it continues to go relatively smoothly -- that because of this experience you would hope that confidence and trust between the Palestinians and the Israelis is also grown up because they had to have practically daily contact and meetings at every level of government in order to be able to pull this off. And if they indeed do, I think you will have created conditions and a level of trust that is unparalleled between the Palestinians and the Israelis.
Then the question is how do you build on that? What do you do with that? And the roadmap is there. There are certain obligations for both sides in the roadmap. Even Prime Minister Sharon said at one point that he thought that this might reenergize, I think he said, the roadmap.
And at the very minimum, I think you want to try to return to the obligations in the roadmap and to continue to move, but there are also things that are going to be happening in parallel in terms of the continued emergence and strengthening of these Palestinian institutions.
So I don't think you're going to see just something stop. I do think you'll have some momentum coming out of this.
QUESTION: Le me follow up on that, if I may. Although trust may be building between the leadership of both sides, the Israelis are also saying publicly in the Knesset, their military officials are saying, that while this disengagement is taking place, Hamas is building up a popular army. It's alleged to be training that army in Gaza, they -- and preparing for more suicide attacks after the disengagement and stockpiling rockets.
First, the facts. What is your assessment of those assertions?
SECRETARY RICE: I don't know how extensive the Hamas "preparations" have been, although we suspect that there have been some. I don't know how to scale what you just said, but that there is some Hamas activity -- that is true. But --
QUESTION: Some increased Hamas activity?
SECRETARY RICE: Yes, well, I don't doubt that Hamas is trying to train and to increase its capacity. It would be one of the things that we've talked to the Palestinian Authority about is that Hamas very often uses periods of calm to try and enhance its capacity.
QUESTION: Its capacity to do what?
SECRETARY RICE: Its capacity to cause trouble. It's a terrorist organization. But, of course, the Palestinian Authority is enhancing its capability as well in this period of time. That is why the continued security reform is important.
QUESTION: But in terms -- excuse me for interrupting.
SECRETARY RICE: Yes, sure.
QUESTION: But if -- we were just talking about moving from disengagement to the roadmap, does it continue --
SECRETARY RICE: Yes. That's where I was going. That's exactly where I was going. This comes to the fact that you cannot simply let a terrorist organization sit forever, that you cannot -- that there is an obligation in the roadmap to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism, not just coexist with it.
QUESTION: Right.
SECRETARY RICE: And so that is one of the most important next elements. I know that the Palestinians have been concerned and so are the Israelis, to have calm in this period of time. It has been a good thing that thus far the Palestinian factions have more or less respected that calm, but that isn't a substitute for the dismantling of the terrorist organizations, because as Abu Mazen himself has said, you can only have one authority and one gun.
QUESTION: Right.
SECRETARY RICE: So the answer to the question, what comes next, is that one of the obligations in the roadmap is that the Palestinian Authority should have unified security forces that are all under the authority of the Palestinian Authority and its leadership, its elected leadership. There will be elections in January. But the Palestinian Authority is going to have to deal with the infrastructure of terrorism, that's one of its obligations.
QUESTION: So the -- is it still then the U.S. position that disarmament, dismantling are the next steps for Israel in the expected steps on the right --
SECRETARY RICE: No, I'm not talking about a sequencing here because the roadmap is assiduously not sequencing one step after another. It gives, in parallel, certain obligations to both sides. And the obligation of the Palestinians has to do with the dismantling of terrorist infrastructure and organizations and they're going to have to do it.
QUESTION: And so what should Israel do right now, after Gaza?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, the Israelis will have certain obligations as well about the continued freeing of Palestinian movement and conditions on the West Bank. That's one of the obligations. I think that we would hope that there is progress again on the Sharm agenda where the Israelis, if you remember, were handing over cities to the Palestinians.
QUESTION: Right. Which has regressed since then.
SECRETARY RICE: Well, no, I just think it's -- it's, frankly, people have been very focused on the disengagement and that's fine. Let them do this well. But my only point to Joel is that there is plenty to do after the disengagement that is already really prescribed in things that they've agreed to in the past, so let's get back on that track. Nobody wanted them to be so focused, I think -- at least we did not -- on what might come next, that they didn't nail down the details on how to get to Gaza disengagement.
There also is going to be a period of time, of course, when after the settlers are out and the idea is demobilizing out of Gaza, where the Palestinians are going to have to -- it's not as if the disengagement is going to end --
QUESTION: No. It's weeks.
QUESTION: Two quick questions on --
MR. MCCORMACK: These are going to have to be the last two quick questions.
QUESTION: Are you --
SECRETARY RICE: I know Steve has a couple of questions he wants to ask.
QUESTION: This is a quick one. Do you think you'll go back there in the fall to keep the momentum going?
SECRETARY RICE: Let's see, you know, what's required. We will have a Quartet in New York because the world comes here for the UNGA. And we'll certainly have a Quartet meeting at that time. There's a Quartet envoys meeting that's scheduled for this week and part of their job is to kind of prepare the meeting of the Quartet and I think we'll look at where we are. But by no means do I think that this is the end.
The other thing is, just to close off this question, the question has been put repeatedly to the Israelis and to us that it cannot be Gaza only and everybody says no, it cannot be Gaza only. There is, after all, even a link to the West Bank and the four settlements that are going to be dismantled in the West Bank. Everybody, I believe, understands that what we're trying to do is to create momentum toward reenergizing the roadmap and through that momentum toward the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state. [..]
NYT interviews Secretary Rice
QUESTION: How do you assure, given what's going on in Gaza right now, how do you assure that that is not the last step for a good while? I used to be based in Israel and I can see what's going to happen. The pictures of these settlers being dragged out is going to play on television for months. There's an election campaign coming up next year. Nothing's likely to happen before the new election.
So it's going to be at least a year before there can be any meaningful new movement, a year in which the Palestinians will grow ever more frustrated and perhaps the violence will ratchet up again, giving the new government an excuse not to do anything. That's a scenario. How do you avoid that scenario from occurring?
SECRETARY RICE: You're right, that's a scenario and our job is not to let that scenario materialize.
Let me say, first, a word about Gaza disengagement and the withdrawal that's going on. First of all, it is an enormously courageous decision on the part of Ariel Sharon and his government. And it is a decision that, in having talked to these people a lot, they took because they believe it is the right thing for the Israeli people and that it is going to improve the security of Israel.
I know, in having talked to them and watched how hard and I think everybody empathizes with what every Israeli has to be feeling and with people uprooting from homes that they have been in for a generation and the difficulty and the pain that that causes. And so I watched Prime Minister Sharon's address to the nation and it was really remarkable statesmanship.
And I just think we have to sometimes pause and think about what this means. It means that the father of the settlement movement, the Likud, Israel is ceding territory. And then, if you look at the other side of that, of course, it is also giving to the Palestinians an opportunity to breathe freely in Gaza, to live without the shadow of settlers and the Israeli army and to begin to build the institutions that are, I think, ultimately going to be the institutions for statehood, whether it is the security forces that are being reformed or the economic structures that I think will start to come into being, you know that Jim Wolfensohn has a significant plan for Gaza but it will be not just for Gaza, it really is for the creation of the basis for economic prosperity for Palestine.
And so -- and you can associate, at the same time, with the joy of the Palestinian people that there's a chance that life will get better and so this is a really quite dramatic moment in the history of the Middle East.
And it's very easy to kind of move on to the next thing, but if you stop and reflect and pause, it also helps you to see that because -- and, you know, and we all hope that it continues to go relatively smoothly -- that because of this experience you would hope that confidence and trust between the Palestinians and the Israelis is also grown up because they had to have practically daily contact and meetings at every level of government in order to be able to pull this off. And if they indeed do, I think you will have created conditions and a level of trust that is unparalleled between the Palestinians and the Israelis.
Then the question is how do you build on that? What do you do with that? And the roadmap is there. There are certain obligations for both sides in the roadmap. Even Prime Minister Sharon said at one point that he thought that this might reenergize, I think he said, the roadmap.
And at the very minimum, I think you want to try to return to the obligations in the roadmap and to continue to move, but there are also things that are going to be happening in parallel in terms of the continued emergence and strengthening of these Palestinian institutions.
So I don't think you're going to see just something stop. I do think you'll have some momentum coming out of this.
QUESTION: Le me follow up on that, if I may. Although trust may be building between the leadership of both sides, the Israelis are also saying publicly in the Knesset, their military officials are saying, that while this disengagement is taking place, Hamas is building up a popular army. It's alleged to be training that army in Gaza, they -- and preparing for more suicide attacks after the disengagement and stockpiling rockets.
First, the facts. What is your assessment of those assertions?
SECRETARY RICE: I don't know how extensive the Hamas "preparations" have been, although we suspect that there have been some. I don't know how to scale what you just said, but that there is some Hamas activity -- that is true. But --
QUESTION: Some increased Hamas activity?
SECRETARY RICE: Yes, well, I don't doubt that Hamas is trying to train and to increase its capacity. It would be one of the things that we've talked to the Palestinian Authority about is that Hamas very often uses periods of calm to try and enhance its capacity.
QUESTION: Its capacity to do what?
SECRETARY RICE: Its capacity to cause trouble. It's a terrorist organization. But, of course, the Palestinian Authority is enhancing its capability as well in this period of time. That is why the continued security reform is important.
QUESTION: But in terms -- excuse me for interrupting.
SECRETARY RICE: Yes, sure.
QUESTION: But if -- we were just talking about moving from disengagement to the roadmap, does it continue --
SECRETARY RICE: Yes. That's where I was going. That's exactly where I was going. This comes to the fact that you cannot simply let a terrorist organization sit forever, that you cannot -- that there is an obligation in the roadmap to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism, not just coexist with it.
QUESTION: Right.
SECRETARY RICE: And so that is one of the most important next elements. I know that the Palestinians have been concerned and so are the Israelis, to have calm in this period of time. It has been a good thing that thus far the Palestinian factions have more or less respected that calm, but that isn't a substitute for the dismantling of the terrorist organizations, because as Abu Mazen himself has said, you can only have one authority and one gun.
QUESTION: Right.
SECRETARY RICE: So the answer to the question, what comes next, is that one of the obligations in the roadmap is that the Palestinian Authority should have unified security forces that are all under the authority of the Palestinian Authority and its leadership, its elected leadership. There will be elections in January. But the Palestinian Authority is going to have to deal with the infrastructure of terrorism, that's one of its obligations.
QUESTION: So the -- is it still then the U.S. position that disarmament, dismantling are the next steps for Israel in the expected steps on the right --
SECRETARY RICE: No, I'm not talking about a sequencing here because the roadmap is assiduously not sequencing one step after another. It gives, in parallel, certain obligations to both sides. And the obligation of the Palestinians has to do with the dismantling of terrorist infrastructure and organizations and they're going to have to do it.
QUESTION: And so what should Israel do right now, after Gaza?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, the Israelis will have certain obligations as well about the continued freeing of Palestinian movement and conditions on the West Bank. That's one of the obligations. I think that we would hope that there is progress again on the Sharm agenda where the Israelis, if you remember, were handing over cities to the Palestinians.
QUESTION: Right. Which has regressed since then.
SECRETARY RICE: Well, no, I just think it's -- it's, frankly, people have been very focused on the disengagement and that's fine. Let them do this well. But my only point to Joel is that there is plenty to do after the disengagement that is already really prescribed in things that they've agreed to in the past, so let's get back on that track. Nobody wanted them to be so focused, I think -- at least we did not -- on what might come next, that they didn't nail down the details on how to get to Gaza disengagement.
There also is going to be a period of time, of course, when after the settlers are out and the idea is demobilizing out of Gaza, where the Palestinians are going to have to -- it's not as if the disengagement is going to end --
QUESTION: No. It's weeks.
QUESTION: Two quick questions on --
MR. MCCORMACK: These are going to have to be the last two quick questions.
QUESTION: Are you --
SECRETARY RICE: I know Steve has a couple of questions he wants to ask.
QUESTION: This is a quick one. Do you think you'll go back there in the fall to keep the momentum going?
SECRETARY RICE: Let's see, you know, what's required. We will have a Quartet in New York because the world comes here for the UNGA. And we'll certainly have a Quartet meeting at that time. There's a Quartet envoys meeting that's scheduled for this week and part of their job is to kind of prepare the meeting of the Quartet and I think we'll look at where we are. But by no means do I think that this is the end.
The other thing is, just to close off this question, the question has been put repeatedly to the Israelis and to us that it cannot be Gaza only and everybody says no, it cannot be Gaza only. There is, after all, even a link to the West Bank and the four settlements that are going to be dismantled in the West Bank. Everybody, I believe, understands that what we're trying to do is to create momentum toward reenergizing the roadmap and through that momentum toward the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state. [..]
Posted by Ted Belman at August 23, 2005 03:23 PM