With all the major players weighing in after a four-day visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Israeli and Arab leaders have lowered their expectations regarding an agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority at the U.S.-sponsored conference next month.

Rice conceded that the summit might have to be postponed for a month.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak told Rice at their meeting Tuesday in Cairo that he was willing to back the event but cautioned against raising expectations in an environment that was unlikely to produce any concrete accord.

Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit warned Monday as well, “Rushing into holding the meeting without an agreement over a substantive and positive document may damage opportunities to achieve a just peace.”

Disappointment Could Turn Violent

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni also warned Wednesday night, at the end of Rice’s shuttle diplomacy tour, that raising expectations of results in the planned Annapolis, Maryland meeting “could lead to frustration and to violence.”

Speaking at a joint conference with Rice, Livni added that past experience has shown that violence results from over-optimism. She also expressed veiled criticism of the PA’s attempts to meet Israel halfway on issues to be negotiated.

“The idea is to reach an understanding, to find a common goal, to find what is the common denominator of the obligations…We need to understand that there’s a need for compromise, for compromises by both sides. Israel is willing to do so,” Livni told reporters.

Rice focused her remarks on the security issues faced by Israel. “Let’s be real. There is a security problem. No one wants to have barriers, but there is a security barrier there. We’ve been told many, many times and been assured it’s not a political barrier and cannot be a political barrier.”

The comment appears to be a reference to concerns expressed by Israelis as well as the international community that the barrier is being built as a future permanent border between Israel and the PA.

Despite declarations by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas of a desire for peace, the Fatah-run PA TV this week showed its viewers a flag depicting the map of Israel with a visual display of the PA flag covering the entire country.

Abbas recently repeated his demand that a proposed new PA state would include all of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, as well as half of Jerusalem – leaving Israel with its 1949 Armistice Line as the border.

While the PA has also promised for thirteen years to end incitement against Israel, a recent Fatah faction editorial showed a Muslim kneeling in prayer with an American bomber in the background. The character prays, “Allah, scatter them. And turn their wives into widows. And turn their children into orphans.”

PA Civilians Experience What Israelis Have Lived With For Years

Rice also pointed out that the security threats with which Israelis have lived for decades now plague the grassroots population in the PA as well.

Hamas gangs continue to attack Fatah supporters in Gaza as well as in Judea and Samaria in an attempt to secure a complete hold on the PA.  Fatah terrorists also continue their bid to topple Hamas’s control over Gaza while retaining the groups’s hold in Judea and Samaria. PA civilians are caught in the crossfire.

Commenting on training that PA security forces are receiving by U.S. military experts, Rice stated, “We’re not just [supporting] them for terrorism and for their international obligations, but also for the security of the Palestinian people.”

 “The Palestinian people don’t want to live in lawlessness. They don’t want to live with gangs running in their streets,” she added.