Yes, Why?

The New York Times asks:-

So why did Saudi Arabia broker a power-sharing agreement between Hamas and the moderate Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, and his Fatah faction at the same time that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had decided to try to revive peace talks?

And offers an answer:-

One reason, no doubt, is that Saudi Arabia — as a leader in the Arab world — wanted to help end the Palestinian-on-Palestinian violence by Hamas and Fatah. But another big reason, analysts said, is that the war in Iraq has intensified the split between Sunnis and Shiites, and deepened a power struggle between the Sunni royal family of Saudi Arabia, and Iran, which is largely Shiite.

Although the United States is rooting for the Saudis in that power struggle, the two countries have some distinctly different ideas about how Saudi Arabia should fight for its leadership role in the region.

The Bush administration has a view that pits America, its Arab allies, Israel and Europe against Iran, Syria and groups, including Hamas, that the United States considers terrorists.

While that alignment may work for the Bush administration, it is not necessarily how America’s Sunni Arab allies view the world. In the battle for influence in the Middle East, Hamas is a prize Saudi Arabia is willing to fight for.

Put simply, in the past year, Iran has been wooing Hamas, which is Sunni. The Saudis did not like that. So they fought to get Hamas back.

“The Saudis did a switcheroo,” said Martin Indyk, the United States ambassador to Israel in the Clinton administration. “The U.S. views the Middle East as a battle between the moderates against the Iranian-led extremists. But our regional allies see this as a divide between Sunnis and Shiites, and Sunni extremists like Hamas may be extremists, but they are Sunnis first.”

“The Saudis,” he said, “don’t want Hamas on the Shia side, on the Iranian side.”

But ends up with:-

The pact put an end, at least temporarily, to the bloodletting. It also put an end, at least temporarily, to Ms. Rice’s attempt to restart peace talks. Ms. Rice flew to Jerusalem for the scheduled meeting anyway, which began on Monday morning with a stilted three-way handshake between Mr. Abbas and Mr. Olmert at Ms. Rice’s hotel, with Ms. Rice standing in the middle. After about an hour of discussions about the Mecca accord, Ms. Rice tried to move the discussion to the peace agenda.

“Let’s go upstairs and talk about your future,” she said, according to a senior Bush administration official. The three went up to her 10th-floor suite, overlooking Jerusalem’s Old City, where she broached what she has termed the “political horizon” — diplomatic speak for the contours of an eventual Palestinian state.

“She pushed for it in the meeting, but Olmert was adamant about not going for it,” said a Palestinian official familiar with the talks.

The reason: the Saudi-brokered Mecca accord. In the end, the Israelis said they refused to open peace negotiations with a unity government that includes Hamas.

Rice Actually Being Robust

As I am subscribed to the State Department list, I just received the text of Secretary Condoleezza Rice's interview yesterday with Nadia Bilbassy-Charters of Al Arabiya.

Some questions (in italics) and her responses:-

QUESTION: As you head into the region to convene this trilateral meeting between President Abbas and the Israeli Prime Minister, we heard that a senior U.S. official has given a letter to President Abbas to say that the U.S. would
not recognize the unity government even if they recognize or they abide by the
Quartet conditions if Hamas is part of it. Is this the case?

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, we have given no such letter to President Abbas. In
fact, we have said that we will wait until the government is formed and then
we'll make a decision about how to deal with that government. We have made
clear that the Quartet principles continue for the United States, and indeed
continue now for the Quartet, to be the basis on which we would judge any
government. But we are waiting to see when the government is formed. There isn't a
government yet, and so I don't think we want to be in a position of making a
decision about it before it's actually formed.

QUESTION: That's true. We don't have a government, but we have the blueprint
for a government. We know how many ministers are going to be in the
government. We know who's going to be from Hamas and Fatah and independent.
So if they implicitly recognize Israel, are you going to negotiate with this government?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think it's extremely important that these principles,
which are not principles just for the sake of principles, but when you think
about it, if you are going to have a two-state solution you have to recognize
the right of the other party to exist. If you are going to have negotiations
for peace, you have to renounce violence. If you are going to be trusted with
agreements, you have to honor past agreements. And so that's why the Quartet
principles are there.

QUESTION: Now you are going to convene this meeting. What's going to be on
the agenda? I mean, behind the niceties and tying to restart the peace
process, what the actual agenda is going to look like?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I'm going to start by asking the parties what they
think is on the agenda. It's been a long time since they've talked about broad
issues. We have a roadmap and everyone needs to fulfill the conditions of the
roadmap. But at the end of the roadmap, there is a destination called the
Palestinian state, and I think it makes sense to begin to talk about how you
get to that destination, what the Palestinian state will look like, what has to
be achieved in order to get to a Palestinian state. And I hope that the agenda
will include some of that discussion, but we're going to take it one step at a
time.

It's important for me to recognize that Prime Minister Olmert and President
Abbas have also established a bilateral channel in which they have made
progress, and I hope that I can bring some energy, perhaps some ideas to get
the parties talking about these issues. But the one thing that I don't want to
do is to make this an American initiative, and so I hope that eventually the
conversation will be joined by particularly the regional states because the
Arab states have an important role to play in bringing about a Palestinian
state.

QUESTION: Are we expecting that the final status issues -- Jerusalem, the
refugees, the border, the settlements -- are we likely to put them on the table
at least to get the parties talking about it?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, all these issues, of course, are contained in the
roadmap and at some point in time they're all issues that have to be addressed
if there's going to be a Palestinian state. We also have to be able to address
capacity of the Palestinian state to govern. We have to be able to address
what the international community can do to support the development of a
Palestinian state. We have to talk about what kind of security arrangements
can assure both Israelis and Palestinians that they can indeed live together in
peace.

QUESTION: What do you expect? I mean when you say, we have to wait for this
formation of this government? Do you want them to spell out what the Quartet
wants, or are you willing to accept that if they say we recognize, we respect
all the previous agreement, that would be good enough to start the process?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, one of the elements is to adhere to the existing
agreements. That's an important element. But it is also important to
recognize that you have to renounce violence. You can't have it both ways.
You can't say that you're going to be part of a democracy and be part of a
peace process but keep an option on violence.