US diplomat: Israel and Palestinians have same peace goal

By ANNE GEARAN AP Diplomatic Writer

SHANNON, Ireland (AP) - Israel and the Palestinians have the same clear goal to settle their worst differences this year, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday, concluding a round of classic shuttle diplomacy that emphasized the Bush administration's growing role as middleman.

"I think they know precisely what they are trying to do. They are trying to get to an agreement by the end of the year that is going to resolve the core issues," Rice said.

She was responding to tension over whether Israel is scaling back ambitions in an attempt to achieve a real deal on President Bush's watch. Palestinians want any agreement to spell out the borders of an eventual Palestinian state and to make other hard calls, while Israel's goals appear less defined.

Palestinians fear that Israel is playing a double game, negotiating the eventual separation of the Jewish state from an Arab one next door and at the same time expanding Jewish housing on land the Palestinians claim for that homeland.

Suspicion is also rising that Israel is stalling on promises to lift some antiterror roadblocks in the West Bank. The network of hundreds of barriers and checkpoints have stopped would-be suicide bombers from crossing into Israel but contribute to economic lassitude and unemployment among Palestinians. The United States has increased pressure on Israel to remove some restrictions to help the Palestinian economy and build confidence in negotiations Bush launched last fall.

"I don't think there's any bad faith here - I don't," Rice told reporters traveling with her en route back to Washington after the latest in a series of meetings with the players in the discussions.

"It's not undue caution to worry about the removal of obstacles that were put there for security reasons," she said.

The puzzle, Rice said, is to find ways to remove barriers to Palestinian movement that satisfy both sides. She said the United States is checking back after roadblocks are lifted to see if the change helped. That is a very particular business, Rice said, done at the level of one neighborhood or one business.

"That's really just more complicated work, and I think we're going to really start to do that," the secretary said.

Meanwhile, a top Abbas aide sharply criticized the administration, just after Rice wrapped up two days of talks.

The aide, Nabil Abu Rdeneh, said the U.S. needs to step up its involvement and exert pressure on Israel to live up to its peace obligations, such as freezing Jewish settlements.

"That's why there should be American pressure on Israel, instead of continous visits and statements," he said in an apparent reference to Rice's frequent trips to the region. "Settlements are continuing, the siege is continuing, and Israelis aren't serious enough."

Abbas aides said the Palestinian president is giving the negotiations two or three more months to produce progress. Abbas retains the option of walking away from the talks if he believes progress is impossible. In that case, "the president will take a dramatic decision, he'll inform the Palestinian people of the complete story of negotiations, and he'll take the right decision at the right moment," the aide said.

When Rice visited in March, Israel promised to remove 61 roadblocks. The United Nations recently reported that only 44 had been dismantled, and most of them had no or little significance.

This time, Rice asked for and got a detailed readout on the barriers Israel has lifted so far.

"Then I was able as a result of that to go back to the Israelis and say, 'Look, these don't seem to have made a difference, is there some other way to make a difference for that population ?' "

Bush's peace initiative envisioned that Israel and the Palestinians would bargain alone for a political settlement this year but said the United States would judge whether both sides were living up to past promises that would be the bedrock of any new deal.

Rice started to fill in that outline on this visit, going from one camp to the other and back again and skipping lofty peace rhetoric in favor of jargon about "movement and access."

"I've had extensive discussions with them and it has helped to build my confidence in what they are doing," Rice said.

She brushed past the political question of the moment during her weekend visit in Israel and the West Bank: Whether Israeli Prime Minster Ehud Olmert can survive his fifth corruption probe in two years in office. Olmert underwent police questioning the day before Rice arrived.

"We'll just keep working with the Israeli government," Rice said.

Olmert met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday, part of a regular exchange that Rice has encouraged. Negotiating teams meet more regularly but their sessions are secret.

Secret settlement negotiations have the best chance for success, Rice said. She acknowledged frustration bred by a lack of visible progress.

"They understand that the absence of activity, a lot of public activity ... makes people wonder whether anything is going on."