October 21, 2007 (LPAC)--Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ended a five-day peace mission to Israel and Palestine with a meeting on Sat., Oct. 21 in London with Jordan's King Abdallah II. According to news accounts, Rice's trip was not exactly a stunning success. She failed in her primary mission, which was to get Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to agree on the wording of a policy document, to be signed by them at a peace conference in Annapolis, Md., which the Bush Administration has been trying to put together for late November or early December of this year. Rice was quoted by The Australian, ``The teams are serious, the people are serious, the issues are serious, and so I am not surprised that there are some tensions.''

Perhaps one reason that the talks were not exactly a stunning success is that Secretary Rice was traveling with Elliot Abrams, the National Security Council's Middle East policy chief, and a rabid neocon, who is dead-set against any kind of final peace agreement, and who has his own agenda for destroying the Palestinian National Congress, by provoking confrontation between Hamas and Fatah. As Lyndon LaRouche observed, ``Rice does not trust Abrams, and Abrams does not trust Rice. So how can there be any kind of diplomatic progress when the U.S. negotiators are working at cross-purposes?''

The situation is further complicated by the fact that Prime Minister Olmert has been given an ultimatum by the religious parties, and by rabid rightwinger Avigdor Lieberman: Any talk on final status issues, including final borders, the status of Jerusalem, and the right of return for Palestinians, will bring down the Olmert coalition government. Without the backing of the National Religious Party, Shas and Lieberman's rightwing party, the government would lose a vote of no confidence in the Knesset. On the other hand, if those issues are not on the table at Annapolis, at least as key items in the joint declaration, to be taken up in future talks, the Palestinians will not attend, and none of the Arab states will attend.

According to news accounts, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley will return to the region within days, to resume the effort started by Rice, and Rice, herself, will be returning to Israel and Palestine before the end of October.