Rice to Israel, Hamas: Cut it Out!

Excerpts Washington Post report "Rice to Raise Humanitarian Issues With Israelis ":

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday she planned to tell Israeli officials to ease the humanitarian suffering in the Gaza Strip and avoid attacks that might kill civilians, but she repeatedly refused to say whether she supported a cease-fire.

"Call it what you will, we want the violence to stop," Rice told reporters traveling with her as she headed to the region during some of the worst Israeli-Palestinian violence in years.

Of course, she says that Hamas must stop first, but she acknowledges that the siege that Israel has laid to Gaza is as wrong as the heavy civilian casualty count rolled up by Israel's response to Gaza militants' longer range rockets.

She advocates making sure that humanitarian aid can get to Gaza with "goods and supplies".

The "goods and supplies" needed in Gaza (as I've also seen from reading many reports especially from news releases from Caritas Jerusalem ) are shown in another excerpt from the above linked report, except that most sources add food to the list.  I don't know why the Washington Post left it out.):

Israel in recent months has tightened economic sanctions on Gaza, resulting in shortages of oil, gasoline, medicine and chlorine for drinking water in the narrow coastal strip that holds 1.5 million people.

If Ms. Rice had talked like she did yesterday nearly two years ago during the Israeli attack on Lebanon, she could be running for president this year too.

Of course, she still seems to have the Bush administration's blind eye towards much reality.  Israel should be supplying Gaza since it seizes all of their tax and customs money and has destroyed farms there. The effort shouldn't be left to other nations and organizations.

It is also true that her bosses in the Bush administration would find such talk useful since they hope to polish up Bush's gawdawful legacy with some kind of deal with Abbas who has called off talks because of the Israeli incursion into the Strip.  But lets not allow it to be said that Condi doesn't know how to work with bullheaded leaders.  She does it mostly by giving in and parroting the words they want said, but still...

tags: condoleeza rice  gaza  israel  abbas  hamas  

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