AP to Rice: Are you feeling lonely?

Secretary Rice's Remarks with Italian FM Franco Frattini - yesterday:

MR. MCCORMACK: We have time for two questions a side. We'll start with Anne Gearan from the Associated Press.

QUESTION: Yes. Madame Secretary, on the Mid-East, yesterday, Prime Minister Olmert said that he does not think a deal is possible on all the core issues by the end of the year. The Palestinians have been pessimistic in public prior to that. Are you feeling a little lonely out there as the only one who thinks a deal is still doable this year? How will you press that with both sides this week?

And Mr. Minister, is there something you think the United States should be doing or doing differently - doing that it isn' doing, or doing differently to try to get a deal in short order?

FOREIGN MINISTER FRATTINI: What - excuse me, and the last part?

QUESTION: Do you think the United States should be doing something differently to try to get a deal done?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I am quite certain and I have been assured that the government of Prime Minister Olmert remains committed to the Annapolis vision of concluding this – an agreement by the end of the year. And there is no doubt that it’s difficult work, and there is no doubt also that there are a number of issues that would have to be resolved. Now, Jerusalem is a final status issue, so it will ultimately have to be resolved.

But our goal, as the United States, is to work as hard as we can to encourage the parties to resolve the differences between them. They are working very, very hard. They are also working very seriously. But, Anne, as I've said to you many times before, had this been easy, somebody else would have solved it a long time ago. The fact is that this is, unfortunately, a conflict that has been going on for decades. As much as people have said they've come close before, no one has done it. And so it only speaks to the difficulty of the issues that they're addressing.

But there are many things going for them this time, including, I think, the realization that the Middle East is not going to get better without the creation of a Palestinian state to live side by side with Israel in peace, security, and democracy. It simply isn't going to get better. And so the question is, if not now, when.

We have to work as hard as we can. I will have the Palestinian delegation here shortly. I will have the Israelis and the Palestinians - the Israeli delegation then tomorrow morning, and the Israelis and Palestinians a little later in a trilateral. I was with Prime Minister - or with Foreign - with Defense Minister Barak a little bit earlier, and I have talked to all of the parties by phone.

So I expect to continue to help the parties find points of convergence, to help them to continue to try to work toward this. But I'm assured that they're all committed to trying to make it happen, but nobody should underestimate the difficulty of doing that.

FOREIGN MINISTER FRATTINI: Yes, I fully agree with what Secretary Rice just said. Just a comment. I believe that time is playing against us. We have now a window of opportunity. That's why it's very important to come to an end before the end of the year, because now we have a good window of opportunity. And I think the moral, not only the institutional duty of Israel and Palestinian Authority is to show the international community that negotiations are alive. This is the very important point, that they are taking seriously, as I think they do, the negotiations.

And what United States is doing is absolutely right, try to persuade, try to move, try to go ahead, and, I would say, explaining to the public opinion that option -- failure does not exist.

This is the very important point because, otherwise, if we lose hopes, it's finished, not only for Middle East but for the international community which is at stake - its credibility - it's at stake, credibility of international community which is involved for a very long time to get comprehensive and lasting peace would be seriously at stake if we (inaudible) to fail. That's why what is - what Secretary Rice is doing is absolutely right.

There's also BILLIONS of dollars at stake, but it would be tacky of me to bring that up, especially when everyone else is talking about the PEACE process.

[WB&G = palestinian terrortories in the "West Bank" and Gaza]

... Palestinian Authority officials reported on Monday that the PA faces a major financial crisis, and is on the verge of bankruptcy (IsraelNN.com).

(How) Can this be? In the first six months of 2008, the "international community has paid out more than 920 million dollars in six months in direct budgetary support and signed for one billion dollars of bilateral agreements with the Palestinian Authority for development projects.

Of this, the U.S. has paid 61%, or $562 million, "surpassing our pledged level of $555 million" - according to a State Department press release yesterday.

"Correlating Palestinian Aid and Homicides" at CAMERA.org:

"The correlation between aid and homicides becomes even stronger when comparing the amount of aid given in one year to the number of homicides occurring in the following year."