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WASHINGTON - US SECRETARY of State Condoleezza Rice will travel to the Middle East this week on a new mission as fresh violence between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza placed the teetering peace process in peril.
With the United States' credibility at stake, Dr Rice faces an uphill task.
The Palestinians have already announced the suspension of US-
backed peace talks after Israeli incursions into Gaza last Saturday.
However, Israel's announcement yesterday of a 'winding down' in the Gaza operation came as a timely respite for Dr Rice, even as early optimism about creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel by the end of this year evaporates.
'She is walking into a buzz-saw,' said Mr Aaron David Miller, author of The Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search For Arab-Israeli Peace.
'You cannot make peace with half of the Palestinian polity and go to war with the other half.'
During her trip, Dr Rice faces very few options in achieving President George W. Bush's stated goal of peace between Israel and a new Palestinian state that includes both the West Bank, where President Mahmoud Abbas' government sits, and Gaza, which is currently controlled by Hamas.
But Israel's military and economic pressure on Gaza, the menacing rocket fire from Gaza into Israel and the ensuing chaos of last weekend have highlighted a fundamental tangle: As long as Hamas controls Gaza, it can subvert negotiations between Israelis and moderate Palestinians whenever it sees fit.
The US finds itself with a dwindling set of choices, none considered attractive.
Dr Rice could encourage Israel to increase the strikes against Hamas in the hopes of destroying its leadership. But Israel tried that with Hizbollah in Lebanon and failed.
Even if Israel did go all out to defeat Hamas in Gaza, the problem of what next remains.
For instance, would Israeli forces remain in Gaza, or would they be replaced by an international force from the already stretched Nato or United Nations?
Dr Rice's other alternative - encouraging Israel to negotiate a ceasefire with Hamas - has its own pitfalls, Middle East experts say, because that would further legitimise Hamas, which the US and Israel consider a terrorist group.
Mr Martin Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel, said such a ceasefire would further undermine President Abbas and make it look like Hamas is the entity with which Israel and the West should be negotiating.
'Excluding them does not work, and including them does not work either,' he said. 'So what do you do?'
The Palestinian President's options are also limited, say experts, given that the peace negotiations with Israel is the main selling point for his claim that he is the only one who can bring the Palestinians a deal with Israel.
A senior Bush administration figure acknowledged last Sunday that Dr Rice 'is playing a really bad hand'.
NEW YORK TIMES, REUTERS
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