Rice Cancels Visit to Israel
By Tzippe Barrow
CBN News - Jerusalem Bureau
May 8, 2007
CBNNews.com - JERUSALEM, Israel - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's cancellation of her upcoming May 15 visit to Israel came as a surprise to some Israeli government officials.
A senior official quoted on Israel Radio Tuesday morning called the cancellation "unprecedented." The official said the political troubles for Israel's government stemming from the Winograd Commission's findings on the Second Lebanon War were the reason behind the cancellation.
U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack confirmed that the Israeli government's internal problems had much to do with the secretary of state not coming at this time.
"There's obviously a lot of politics in Israel they're working through at this point," said State Department spokesman Mark McCormack, "but we're going to continue our efforts to advance the Israeli-Palestinian track."
In response to the announcement, a Likud party member called the change in plans "another testimony to the dysfunction of Olmert's government and the crumbling of systems in Israel under this government…which demands the government's resignation."
Meanwhile in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas was unable to convince PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and several Gaza-based terror organizations, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees and Fatah's al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades, to accept the latest U.S. plan that sets time tables for removing checkpoints and generally easing restrictions at crossings for Palestinians.
On Sunday, Abbas publicly praised the plan.
"The American document, which the Palestinian leadership received, includes important steps to achieve security in the Palestinian territories," he said. "The plan is a first step toward easing the suffering of the Palestinian people," said Abbas, who called on Israel to accept the plan.
Despite the chairman's backing, a senior Hamas member told The Jerusalem Post that his organization is uninterested in changing its position on the plan. Hamas is convinced, he said, that the initiative is "a new American-Israeli conspiracy against Hamas."
If the international economic sanctions imposed on the PA governmenty back in January 2006 are not lifted, Hamas has threatened to step up terrorist attacks.
Sources: The Jerusalem Post, Haaretz
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