The State Department has dismissed a recent poll of Jewish and Arab Americans showing that an overwhelming majority ranked the Bush administration as ineffective in dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The Bush administration inherited a complicated situation in the Middle East when it came into power in 2000 and is on the "right course...to build up Palestinian institutions that might actually form the basis of a Palestinian state," American State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters Monday.
Responding to a reporter's doubts that the U.S. has succeeded in building up Palestinian Authority (PA) institutions, McCormack cited the recent creation of a special fund under the jurisdiction of PA Finance Minister Salaam Fayyad. "That's a real step forward. You have gone from the era when people were paid under the table in brown paper bags and brown paper envelopes," McCormack added.
He also asserted that PA security forces are more organized under one authority than they were under Yasser Arafat. He did not refer to the rival militia war between terrorist factions that has resulted in the dozens of deaths in the past year.
The Bush administration inherited a complicated situation in the Middle East when it came into power in 2000 and is on the "right course...to build up Palestinian institutions that might actually form the basis of a Palestinian state," American State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters Monday.
Responding to a reporter's doubts that the U.S. has succeeded in building up Palestinian Authority (PA) institutions, McCormack cited the recent creation of a special fund under the jurisdiction of PA Finance Minister Salaam Fayyad. "That's a real step forward. You have gone from the era when people were paid under the table in brown paper bags and brown paper envelopes," McCormack added.
He also asserted that PA security forces are more organized under one authority than they were under Yasser Arafat. He did not refer to the rival militia war between terrorist factions that has resulted in the dozens of deaths in the past year.