Today's Situation

RICE IS BACK AGAIN, August 1, 2007

As happens occasionally in the media, the main stories in Wednesday's paper have, to some extent, been rendered obsolete by subsequent events. The lead headline in Haaretz, for example, which states that Israel will press U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who arrives here today, to invite Saudi Arabia to President George Bush's international peace summit planned for the fall.

Rice will ask Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to continue making 'gestures' to Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority, one U.S. official said, and will tell him to move the gestures 'up to the next level' in order to 'strengthen the moderates.'

Before leaving Jeddah for Tel Aviv, however, Rice heard some good news from her Saudi host. At a joint press conference, Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said that his country would attend the conference, in what would be a significant diplomatic breakthrough.

According to Israel Radio, Jerusalem responded to the Saudi's announcement by issuing a statement welcoming the decision. 'We hope that many Arab countries will attend this international meeting, including Saudi Arabia,' read a statement from the office.

The Saudi announcement followed publication of joint U.S.-Saudi statement in support of the Saudi 2002 peace initiative. Israel has previously said that the Saudi plan can serve as a basis for negotiations, and the United States has stated that Israel should retain large settlement blocs, but Wednesday statement makes no reference to any conditions to the Saudi plan.

In other diplomatic developments, Olmert appeared Tuesday to attempt to lower the temperature on Israel's border with Syria, when he told graduates of the College for National Security in Jerusalem that he does not expect Israel to come under attack in the summer or fall. Israel's neighbors know that Israel would prefer to talk peace, the prime minister. In contrast, Syrian President Bashar Assad said Tuesday that Syria was obligated to 'free our holy land.'  Assad said that his army is 'stronger than it has ever been,' and told soldiers they must 'return every grain of dirt' from land that was once Syrian.

Earlier in the day Syrian Foreign Minister Wallid Muallem announced that Syria is willing to participate in a regional peace council proposed by United States President George Bush.  Syria will 'support every serious effort to establish peace and stability in the region,' Muallem said.

Elsewhere, Channel 10 aired Tuesday an interview with a Hizbollah officer, who said that the organization was close to surrendering toward the end of the Second Lebanon War. The group was running low on food, water, and weapons, the unnamed officer said, and would have held out for less than two weeks. He described the ceasefire as 'a life jacket.'

Finally, Yedioth Ahronoth leads on Wednesday with a report that Israel is planning to build a nuclear power plant, after decades of toying with the idea. Recent discussions in the Prime Minister's Office and the Infrastructure Ministry indicate that a more serious consideration of the proposal may now be underway, as an environmentally friendly way of generating electricity. 

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