This articles was originally published in Arabic by Jordan's Al Ra'y and was translated by Mideastwire. It is republished with permission.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in October of last year. Rice is in the Middle East this week and will visit with Abbas in the West Bank. (Maan Images)

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will begin a tour of the Middle East, which will take her to Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Palestinian territories. She is believed to be carrying US ideas concerning the situation between the Palestinians and Israelis. There is a concern that Rice's tour is aimed at seeking Arab support for the United States with respect to the coming measures and steps the administration of President George Bush intends to take in relation to Iran. The reason for this concern is that the ideas Rice may put forward regarding the Palestinian cause might not have positive results or fulfil the Arab and Palestinian aspirations, and that these ideas might be similar to the promises Bush made shortly before the war on Iraq in 2003, when he called for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel by 2005.

The year 2006, not 2005, is about to end without the US administration offering any serious step; on the contrary, perhaps it retracted even previous promises to revive the peace process. Therefore, if the United States wants to gain Arab support, it might throw them some crumbs regarding the Palestinian issue, which would quickly disappear. The Republican administration made a mistake when it failed to listen to the voices of reason and wisdom in the Arab region, which underlined the importance of solving the Palestinian issue as the number one concern in the Middle East.

The US secretary should realize that any unserious ideas that do not lead to the establishment of a geographically contiguous and viable state and the fulfilment of the Palestinian people's right to self-determination will not succeed. This will keep the region vulnerable to wars and crises as a result of Israeli arrogance and intransigence and the fortress mentality dominating the minds of the leaders of Israel. If these leaders want security for themselves, their sons and the coming generations, they should immediately begin negotiations with the Palestinians, which would eventually lead to the implementation of the UN resolutions and understandings reached with the Palestinians.

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During the days of Palestinian President Yasir Arafat, the US administration used the pretext that it wanted a serious partner for peace. After Arafat's departure and Mahmud Abbas's assumption of the Palestinian National Authority presidency post, the US administration did not offer a single serious step that could support the efforts of President Abbas. The US administration and Israel are now using the pretext that the Hamas government does not recognize Israel. If, however, this problem is solved based on an equation that leads to the formation of a Palestinian national unity government that recognizes Israel on the basis of the prisoners' document, Israel will find a pretext to procrastinate over bringing an end to its occupation of the Palestinian territories. The Israeli unilateral solutions, which stoke, rather than end, violence have proved a failure. The only real path is for the two sides to return to the negotiating table.

The US secretary might be carrying ideas, and her tour might be a public relations tour; however, she and the US administration are in the end responsible for what is happening in the region and what could happen in the future as a result of the frustration prevailing in the Arab countries, which will ignite successive crises and plunge the region into a situation worse than can be imagined. The US secretary is mistaken if she believes that Iran is the central cause for the Arabs. Iran's case with the Security Council and the US administration is not an Arab priority. The Arab priority is to find a solution to the Palestinian question, to end the US occupation of Iraq, and to restore life to normal in this Arab country, which has been plagued with conflicts and wars for more than a quarter of a century.

Any US ideas related to the Palestinian question should be in harmony with the resolutions of the Arab summit in Beirut, which launched the Arab peace initiative. The initiative provides for an Arab recognition of Israel in exchange for Israel's withdrawal from the Palestinian and Arab territories it occupied in 1967. It is an important initiative, which can be built on if there is a real tendency to fulfil the national rights of the Palestinian people as a prelude to a just and comprehensive peace in the region.