Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice came to the Middle East. In a keynote address at the October 11th inaugural gala of the “American Task Force on Palestine” she described her mission:

“... President Bush asked me to travel last week to the Middle East – to confer with moderate voices, with moderate Arab governments and with moderate leaders, to build a support for those people who are trying and who need our help more than ever now, leaders like Prime Minister Siniora in Lebanon, Prime Minister Maliki in Iraq, and most especially, of course, president Abbas in the Palestinian territories ...”

Rice placed full U.S. support behind Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas:

“At the same time, we fully support President Abbas, and the growing number of his fellow citizens, who are urging Hamas to put the interests of the Palestinian people ahead of their own rejectionist agenda.”

While Secretary of State Rice fully supports Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas there’s an important question some people are raising: does Abbas fully support terror groups? More specifically, is there a connection between Fatah – Abbas’s party - and the Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade, identified by Condoleeza Rice’s own State Department as a terror organization?

David Bedein of the Israel Resource News Agency cites the following information from the U.S. State Department’s own website that makes a direct connection with Fatah to the Al-Aksa Martyrs brigade.

Here’s an excerpt on page 126 of the State Department’s 2005 annual report on terror in the “Middle East and North Africa Overview”:

“Terrorist activities in the Middle East and North Africa continued to be a primary concern in the global war on terror. Active extremist groups in this region include: al-Qaeda, the Islamic resistance movement, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (pij) (and) the al-aqsa martyrs ' brigades (fatah's militant wing) ...”

On page 132 it also states:

“Palestinian terrorist groups conducted a significant number of attacks in Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip even after a "period of calm" was agreed in February ... the number of victims killed in Israel in terrorist attacks was less than 50, down from the almost 100 individuals killed in 2004. Israeli security forces successfully thwarted other planned attacks. Palestinian Islamic jihad (pij), the Fatah-linked Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (aamb), Hamas, and the popular resistance committees (prc) were responsible for most of these attacks...”

Bedein also cites the Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade own website:

“On February 5th, 2005, the official website of the Al Aksa brigades featured a letter from the Al Aksa martyrs brigades to the Fatah revolutionary council which quotes the late Yasser Arafat who officially declared the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade to be the "military wing" of the Fatah and that the Al Aksa brigades would continue to follow the Fatah leadership of ""the brother Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas)."

All this U.S. support for Abbas has some Jewish leaders troubled. Isi Liebler, a Jewish international leader expressed his reservations in an op-ed in today’s Jerusalem Post entitled “We need the guts to say no to Rice.”

Here are some of his views:

“Once again it (the U.S.) is urging us to bolster the "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority.

The reality is that despite wearing a suit and tie and talking to westerners like a moderate, Abbas is simply paying lip service to a two-state policy - with the caveat that it must incorporate the "right of return" of Arab refugees; a prescription for our demise.

More importantly, before Hamas won the election Abbas reigned over a regime whose central pillars - cultural, religious and educational - were based on sanctifying the murder of Jews as a supreme religious and national objective.

Mothers of suicide bombers appeared on official PA TV exulting the martyrdom of their sons; PA broadcasts of sermons in mosques called on congregants to kill Jews; schools, kindergartens and summer camps brainwashed children into accepting suicide bombers as ultimate role models...

At least Hamas is honest about its evil intent to destroy Israel. But the reality is that Abbas's Fatah movement's armed wings are responsible for murdering far more Israelis than Hamas has.

To make matters worse, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is now actually urging Abbas to form a unity government with Hamas. The only obstacle is that Hamas insists on retaining its weapons and adamantly refuses - even insincerely - to express an incantation implying that it could ever accept the existence of the "Zionist entity."

Rice had previously coerced (former Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon and his Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz into handing over control of the Philadelphia route between Sinai and Gaza to the Egyptians. Not surprisingly, the Egyptians reneged on their undertakings and a massive flow of armaments and terrorists have been pouring into Gaza along that route.”

Yet today the Americans are pressing Israel to ease security requirements at all checkpoints for "humanitarian reasons," in order to bolster Abbas.”

Rice said in her keynote address, her motive was “to empower moderate men and women in the Palestinian territories and across the region, to help them build lives of peace and dignity ...” The question remains, is she dealing with moderates at all? The answer will have profound consequences here in Israel and also for the United States.