U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hinted Saturday that secret talks between Israel and Fatah-PA could lead to a deal just like the negotiations that preceded the 'Oslo accord' did. Speaking before the Aspen Institute, Rice said she last met with the negotiating parties on Wednesday. In her words: "They're negotiating seriously. And they are negotiating intensely. I cannot tell you that they are close to an agreement, but they are working at it very hard. They're trying to do it out of the glare of the media."
"It's sometimes forgotten," she explained, "that the most successful negotiation that the Palestinians and the Israelis ever had was Oslo, and nobody even knew, in 1993, that they were negotiating. Because the minute that somebody has to talk about a partial agreement, they're exposed politically at home. If they can wait until something is broad enough to cover everybody's interests, they'll be better off. So the absence of public movement is not necessarily evidence of the absence of movement."
'It's complicated'
"The most successful negotiation that the Palestinians and the Israelis ever had was Oslo, and nobody even knew, in 1993, that they were negotiating."
Rice admitted that there were problems with the implementation of previous commitments by both Israel and their Arab partners. "The Palestinians said that they would dismantle the infrastructure of terror. The Israelis made some representations about dismantling outposts. It's a slog, to be quite frank," she said.
Despite this, she said, "I still believe they've got a chance to get an agreement. It's obviously complicated. But there hasn't been an uncomplicated time in the Middle East, ever. And so while it's difficult, you just have to keep pressing.
Jewish population in Judea and Samaria up 4%
The number of Jews living in Judea and Samaria went up 4 percent in 2007, the "Palestinian Central Bureau for Statistics" reported.
The bureau's report said the number of "settler" went up from 466,005 at the end of 2006 to 483,453 at the end of 2007.