'Cooked' Rice

The Pals. don't pull punches when given a platform. No embarrassment there.

Here's from the Secretary of State's press conference yesterday:-

QUESTION: Madame Secretary, the Palestinian people are suffering in spite of the mechanisms trying to help them. President Abbas, and surely you know he's trying to form a unity government in order to help lift the – to get to the
financial aid from the Americans and the Europeans. In the light of these efforts, in the light of the suffering of the Palestinian people, are you going to support his unity government? Are you going to recommend a lifting of sanctions on financial aid to the Palestinians?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, we have welcomed his efforts to bring an end to the crisis through the formation of a unity government, but a unity government would need to reflect the Quartet principles because you can't have peace unless you recognize the other partner for peace and renounce violence.

That said, we have been very supportive of President Abbas. We have been supportive of the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people through direct assistance to the Palestinians people for humanitarian needs. And we supported in the Quartet, of course, the expansion of the temporary international mechanism which could allow then for assistance to get to the Palestinian people for specific needs.

QUESTION: What incentives are you giving Hamas to – besides killing their
leader or kidnapping their leader and killing their people? What incentive? You
are putting more conditions on them now.

SECRETARY RICE: Well, the incentive for Hamas should be to be able to live up to the promises that it made to the Palestinian people in the elections that they would have a better life. And clearly a better life is only going to be won on the basis of the roadmap, on the basis of a two-state solution, and that two-state solution can only be achieved if both parties are committed to peace.

Credit to them for their chutzpah.