Rice Affirms U.S. Commitment to Creation of a Palestinian State
12 October 2006
Secretary urges Palestinian Americans to support state-building project
Washington – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice affirmed U.S. commitment to the goal of creating a Palestinian state and urged Palestinian Americans to mobilize their full energy to realizing this objective.
“I believe that there could be no greater legacy for America than to help to bring into being a Palestinian state for a people who have suffered too long, who have been humiliated too long, who have not reached their potential for too long, and who have so much to give to the international community and to all of us,” Rice told a group of Palestinian Americans at an October 11 Washington meeting of the American Task Force on Palestine.
The secretary outlined the United States’ efforts to support the Palestinian state-building process. She said the United States has supported Palestinian elections and has worked with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to build democratic institutions. She defended the United States’ support for the January elections that brought Hamas to power, saying that Hamas’ victory has imposed a new set of responsibilities on the organization.
“For decades, Hamas dwelled in the shadows, able to hijack the future of all Palestinians at will, without ever having to answer for its actions,” she said. “Today, however, the Palestinian people and the international community can hold Hamas accountable. And Hamas now faces a hard choice that it has always sought to avoid: Either you are a peaceful political party, or a violent terrorist group - but you cannot be both.”
Rice added her voice to that of Abbas and other Palestinians who have urged Hamas “to put the interests of the Palestinian people ahead of their own rejectionist agenda.”
Rice said the United States has worked to help the Palestinians lay the economic foundations for a successful state. In particular, she mentioned her efforts to negotiate the Agreement on Movement and Access, aimed at facilitating the movement of goods and people into, out of, and around the Palestinian Territories.
“It is important that we continue to work so that Palestinians and Israelis can implement this agreement,” she said.
The secretary said the United States also is working to improve the Palestinian security environment, having sent a military adviser to consult with the Palestinian president about reforming the security forces.
Rice urged her Palestinian-American audience to lend its full support to the state-building project.
“[L]et us mobilize the full energy of the Palestinian-American community. Let us find new and more determined ways to realize our shared vision of two states, Palestine and Israel, living side by side in peace and security,” she said.
Rice responded to Palestinian-American concerns about continued access to the Palestinian Territories and reported discrepancies in the treatment of Palestinian-American versus other American travelers saying, “People like you have a vital role to play in the Middle East, and I will continue to do everything in my power to support your good work, and to ensure that all American travelers receive fair and equal treatment.”
Rice urged the Palestinian Americans to support moderate men and women in the region. “If peace and dignity are to prevail in the region, then it is absolutely essential … for moderate leaders to show, that their ideas, and their principles, and their vision for the future can offer a better alternative than violence and terrorism,” she said.
The secretary recalled that President Bush was the first American president to make the creation of a Palestinian state a matter of U.S. policy. She said Bush’s September speech to the U.N. General Assembly “reiterated his deep conviction that the Palestinian people deserve a better life - a life that is rooted in liberty and democracy, uncompromised by violence and terrorism, unburdened by corruption and misrule, and forever free of the daily humiliation of occupation.”
The full text of Rice’s address to the American Task Force on Palestine is available on the State Department’s Web site.
For more information, see The Middle East: A Vision for the Future.
The full text of President Bush’s address to the U.N. General Assembly is available on the White House Web site.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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