NYT : Israel Declares Gaza an ‘Enemy Entity’

Israel Declares Gaza an ‘Enemy Entity’

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | September 19, 2007

SHANNON, Ireland (AP) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday a U.S.-sponsored Mideast peace conference this fall will confront ''critical issues'' in the six-decade conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, but she remained vague about what is on the agenda and who will attend.

''Nobody wants to have a meeting where people simply come and sit and talk and talk and talk,'' Rice said en route to a quick visit with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. ''We want to advance the cause,'' of peace between enemies.

President Bush in July called for a new conference to break the deadlock in the Mideast peace process, but the lack of an official agenda, location and timing for the meeting worries Arab leaders the United States wants to recruit as backers for renewed peace talks leading to an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.

With only two months to organize the session, expected in mid-November, the United States has not issued invitations to Arab states or others and has been unclear about what it wants to accomplish.

Rice waved off questions about the conference agenda and attendance list, saying she will have more to say soon.

''It's extremely important from our point of view that it be serious and substantive,'' Rice told reporters aboard her plane. ''We can't simply continue to say that we want a two-state solution -- we've got to start to move toward one.''

The session will be judged largely on whether it addresses the most contentious issues between Israel and the Palestinians, including the borders of those two states, and whether key Mideast power broker Saudi Arabia attends. The Saudis do not have diplomatic relations with Israel.

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said last week his country would probably skip the conference if it did not tackle substantive issues, while Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has said he is concerned the meeting would amount to nothing without proper preparation.

On other topics, Rice said the United States is concerned about possible nuclear proliferation or other illicit behavior by both North Korea and Syria, but she refused to comment on reports that the two sometime U.S. adversaries are cooperating on a nuclear program.

''We don't have any illusions about the nature of the North Korean regime, and we've been concerned about proliferation from the very beginning,'' Rice said in her first public remarks on the question of whether Israeli warplanes may have targeted a North Korean-related nuclear site inside Syria.

Syria and North Korea denied any nuclear collaboration Tuesday and accused U.S. officials of spreading allegations either to protect Israel or scuttle progress on a nuclear disarmament deal between Washington and Pyongyang.

''I'm not going to comment on reports that have been in the newspaper about all of this,'' Rice told reporters in response to a question about whether she would raise the issue with Israel.

''You know that we've also had concerns about Syria, that we watch very carefully activities concerning Syria.''

The Bush administration accuses Syria of seeding terrorism and undermining the democratic government in neighboring Lebanon. Syria and North Korea have made weapons deals in the past, but any possible nuclear cooperation would be new.

Details of Israel's Sept. 6 incursion into Syria remain unclear.

U.S. officials have said Israeli warplanes struck a target. A senior U.S. nonproliferation official said last week that North Korean personnel were in Syria helping its nuclear program, raising speculation that the Israelis were targeting a nuclear installation.

Syria has said only that warplanes entered its airspace, came under fire from anti-aircraft defenses, and dropped munitions and fuel tanks to lighten their loads while they fled.

Andrew Semmel, acting deputy assistant secretary of state for nuclear nonproliferation policy, said Syria may have had contacts with ''secret suppliers'' to obtain nuclear equipment. He did not identify the suppliers, but he said that North Koreans were in Syria and that he could not exclude involvement by the network run by the disgraced Pakistan nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan.

Israel has clamped a news blackout on the raid. The United States has been criticized in Arab media for failing to condemn the raid.

On Iran, Rice warned the United Nations' chief nuclear inspector not to complicate the international ultimatum to the Islamic state to shutter its disputed atomic work, saying that diplomacy is best left to diplomats.

''It is not up to anybody to diminish or to begin to cut back on the obligations that the Iranians have been ordered to take,'' by the United Nations Security Council, Rice said.

Although Rice did not mention U.N. nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei by name she was referring to his plan, widely seen as an attempt to head off a third round of U.N. sanctions, to account for Iran's past nuclear behavior.

ElBaradei said Monday that nations critical of his last-ditch effort should wait until the end of the year to see if Iran answers outstanding questions before taking any other action.