American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is meeting at this hour with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, is on her 11th trip to Israel in the past 18 months. She visited twice in March, announcing plans by Israel to ease security restrictions on Arabs in Judea and Samaria and dispatching envoys to Egypt to conduct indirect talks with Hamas.
In November 2006, she prompted Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas to hold their first formal meeting in two years. Secretary Rice pressured the two leaders to meet every two weeks, but they did not stick to the timetable and delayed discussions for several weeks.