by ami eden
jta
nashville, tenn. | Facing mounting skepticism over the upcoming U.S.-led, Israeli-Palestinian peace summit, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a massive gathering of Jews here that progress toward a two-state solution is vital to confronting Iran.
“What is at stake is nothing less than the future of the Middle East,” Rice said Nov. 13 during an address to delegates at this week’s General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities.
“Violent extremists, with the government of Iran increasingly in the lead, are doing everything in their power to impose their fear, their resentments and their hate-filled ideologies on the people of the Middle East,” she said. “This makes the two-state solution even more urgent than ever.”
Asserting that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is a true peace partner, Rice said she fears that if “Palestinians reformers” fail to deliver on the Palestinian people’s hope for a state, then “the moderate center could collapse and the next generation of Palestinians will become lost souls of unbridled extremism.”
Rice’s speech at the G.A. comes amid growing Jewish opposition to various proposals aimed at jump-starting Israeli-Palestinian talks and a mushrooming campaign to raise questions about whether Palestinian leadership is committed to peace.
While the Bush administration praises Abbas, members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations are raising new questions about the Palestinian leader.
The Presidents Conference — the Jewish community’s main pro-Israel umbrella group — is considering a resolution calling on Abbas to rescind any clauses in his Fatah party’s constitution that challenge Israel’s right to exist.
In addition, a growing coalition of Orthodox and right-wing organizations are mobilizing to head off any proposal on dividing or sharing Jerusalem with the Palestinians.
There is growing concern among some influential Jewish organizations that a failed summit could end up triggering a fresh round of violence.
In an exclusive interview with JTA prior to her speech at the G.A., Rice rejected such concerns.
“No one can afford to fail here,” the secretary of state said. “Not acting is failure in these circumstances.”
“When you have a Palestinian partner who is dedicated against violence and against terrorism, and who’s struggling against an alternative view for the Palestinians,” Rice said, “not acting, I think, has much, much more significant risk than acting.”
Rice praised several steps taken by Abbas and his loyalists in the West Bank to fight terrorism.
“Frankly, some of the things that they’ve done recently in terms of the closing down of charities, the freezing of bank accounts — this is a very good start,” Rice said. “The security operations that are going on in Nablus are a good start.”
JTA Washington bureau chief Ron Kampeas contributed to this report.
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California