Condi Pressures for Overthrow of Abbas

That wasn't the message she was trying to convey, but it is only Israel's activity in Judea and Samaria, heavily criticized by Mahmoud Abbas/Abu Mazen, that keeps Hamas from doing there what it did in Gaza.

Our artificial "balance" continues to destroy hopes for peace.

Rice urges Israel to relax stance on West Bank

Associated Press

Jerusalem - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Saturday she would push for an easing of Israeli restrictions on Palestinians in the West Bank as she began her latest Mideast mission aimed at reviving faltering peace talks.

Rice said she was looking for "real concrete progress" on several issues, including improving the movement and access of people and goods from the West Bank. Israeli checkpoints and strict travel rules have curtailed such commerce and largely crippled the Palestinian economy.

[The economy in the disputed territories has gone downhill ever since the Palestinian Authority took over. It will improve only when the Palestinian Arabs give their own welfare priority over their desire to destroy Israel.]

"I will spend a good deal of time on issues concerning the West Bank and issues concerning the ability to provide a better life for the people of the West Bank, including ways to improve movement and access," she told reporters on her plane en route to Israel.

"The improvement of life on the ground is the piece that I think really has to be pushed forward pretty hard," Rice said before arriving and heading to dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Easing the restrictions would clear the way for economic revival projects proposed by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, now a Mideast peace envoy, with the strong backing of Palestinian leaders who control the West Bank.

Rice planned three-way talks today with Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

[Saving lives takes priority over making things easier for people who overwhelmingly voted for the extremist terror group Hamas over the moderate terror group Fatah. In the long run, appeasement only leads to more death.]