Please Excuse the Transition

Yesterday at the United Nations, there was a meeting with the press, featuring Secretary of State Rice along with Kofi Annan and others. Here is one of the exchanges:

QUESTION: First of all, Secretary Rice, we just got the statement, but basically it said in the statement something about militias not candidates for -- armed militias not being candidates for elections. So let me put it another way. Prime Minister Sharon said last week that he will not -- that Israel will not help in -- if Hamas is part of the election. What is your view on that?

And also for the Europeans, what is there -- maybe Foreign Minister Straw. Since the EU said yesterday that it's about to, I think, 215 million Euro was the number to Gaza, what do we do to assure that money that goes into the Palestinian territories will not go into, you know, failed projects that might go to waste?

SECRETARY RICE: Before turning to my European colleague, let me just say that I think the Secretary General has said very well that there is concern that any democratic process must observe that you cannot have kind of an armed option within the democratic process. But we understand that the Palestinian political system is in transition, that it is in transition toward a democratic system, and that that has to be a Palestinian process.

We would hope that the elections can go forward and that everyone will cooperate to make those elections go forward because elections are fundamental to the continued evolution and development of the Palestinian process. That said, again, we have noted that ultimately it is the case that there is a fundamental contradiction between armed activities and the political process, armed activities that are outside the monopoly of the state on violence and the political process. And so that is a matter of principle ultimately.

We understand that this is a transition and I think everybody understands that this is a transitional process.

That's 4 times that Rice goes to the 'T' word. Considering the accumulation of arms following the Disengagement, the burning of synagogues, the failure to disarm Hamas and other terrorists, the murder of other Palestinian Arabs and the general overall corruption, I think it would be more accurate to say that what the Palestinians have on their hands it not a transition, but a mess. (The next time we have company at the house, I'll just tell them, "please excuse my daughter's room, it's in transition.")

Rice also uses the word process alot--6 times, including the impressive phrase "transitional process."

Rice seems to be going to great pains to push the idea that this is going to take a while, and that we should ignore the man behind the Kassam rocket. But the problem is that we are not in occupied Gaza anymore. This is land that is under the 'control' of the Palestinian Arabs, though at times it's difficult to tell which ones. It's time to start demanding some kind of accountability.

But it would be refreshing if the coddling would stop and someone would put their foot down. After all it was only last week that Bush was supposed to have indicated to Sharon that there will be no further steps in the diplomatic process if Gaza is not quiet. And Rice was supposedly at that meeting. Which may explain why rather than stick to the implications of Bush's words to Sharon, Rice comes out with:

I believe the Quartet's assessment of the Gaza withdrawal is that, in fact, it has been a successful withdrawal, that it demonstrated that the Israelis and the Palestinians can work together in the most detailed circumstances, in the most difficult circumstances. I think there has been excellent security coordination and cooperation that allowed the withdrawal to take place peacefully and effectively.

Our task now is to build on the momentum of that withdrawal to help the Palestinians create in Gaza a model for a Palestinian Authority that can indeed govern. And the international community is very actively involved in that. We talked today about security reform and the Ward mission that has been trying to improve the capabilities of the Palestinian security forces.

Yup, there she again talking about that momentum thing again. But from the way she describes it, you'd think there must have been a second disengagement going on that the rest of us weren't aware of.

More and more, it appears that Bush's Middle East policy is one big...transition.

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