American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, scheduled to arrive in Israel this week, is "walking into a buzz saw," American author and Middle East analyst Aaron Miller told The New York Times Monday. "You cannot make peace with half of the Palestinian polity and go to war with the other half," said Miller, author of "The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace." He declared, "This is beyond her capacity. Israel cannot make peace with a divided Palestine."

Former American Ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, added that Secretary Rice's dilemma of not wanting to recognize Hamas, coupled with Israel's inability to conquer Hamas without international protests, has left her in a bind. "So what do you do? This is a situation that does not lend itself to a sensible policy," Indyk concluded.