Albright: lady in pink with determination of steel
Regional, Politics, 9/10/1997

Speaking over the heads of both PNA President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, Albright backed Israeli demands of the PNA to fight "terror" yet clearly noted that security cannot be achieved without peace and that both go hand in glove. The second part of her statement was seen as a direct message to Netanyahu that the lack in security should not serve as his alibi for not honouring the peace agreements with the PNA. "I arrive with a straightforward message from President Clinton and the American people: we are with you in the battle against terror.... Although we are very much focused this week on the question of security, we also know that the path to real security is not separable from the path to real peace. One goes with the other; neither can go alone," Albright said before her breakfast meeting with Weizman..

Albright's schedule on her first day was hecticly busy in such a way that she had no time to enjoy the royal suite at the Laromme Hotel in West Jerusalem, where 200 rooms had been booked for her entourage that included the special peace envoy to the Middle East, Dennis Ross, and an army of aides and assistants. Six bocques of flower decorated her suite along with a large variety of Israeli wines.The hotel management did not forget to offer her different kinds of Dead Sea minerals that waited in her bathroom, but in vein. The "iron lady of the US" as many have started to call her, was too busy to entertain herself. "A tough work is ahead of her and the talks she is going to have with both Netanyahu and Arafat are not going to be less tough," a US diplomat said Wednesday morning.

Albright was received at the Ben Gurion Airport by Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy who accompanied her up to Jerusalem. During their trip, both had a tete-a-tete meeting. Luckily for Levi, Albright speaks French, the only foreign language that the Israeli foreign minister speaks. No details came out of that meeting but sources close to the foreign ministry were quoted by Israel radio as saying that Levy had committed himself to carry on his efforts to save the peace agreement with the PNA and that he reiterated earlier threats that he would resign if the Israeli government acts in a way that would bury the peace process.

Senior diplomatic sources in the prime minister's office later expressed their fury at reported contents of the meeting between President Weizman and Albright. The president reportedly urged Albright to exert pressure on both Netanyahu and Arafat arguing that neither late prime minister of Israel Menachem Begin nor late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat could have reached the Camp David agreements if it hadn't been for the pressure former president Jimmy Carter exerted on both of them. Weizman also reportedly told her that Begin had headed to the Camp David talks without having in his intention any tendency to pull out of Jewish settlements but it was only after the US pressured Israel that he accepted to evacuate the settlement of Yamit in the Sinai, before it was handed over back to Egypt.

Albright, the sources said, told the president that she was not in Israel with plans but with ideas and that the president urged her to ask Netanyahu for a map of his future steps. Weizman had lately criticized the policy of the current Israeli government and urged Netanyahu to take steps that would save the peace process from a final breakdown. "It is a pity that peace talks which were reached after so many years of conflict between Israel and the Arabs, are now stuck," Weizman used to tell his interlocutors that included Israeli, Palestinian and foreign officials.

Albright's schedule included two meetings with Netanyahu and two others with Arafat. Albright¹s aides have prepared two speeches for her which she will use when she addresses high school students in West Jerusalem and Ramallah on Thursday. In both speeches she will stress the need for building trust, will call on the Palestinians to refrain from carrying out attacks against Israel, and will call on Israel to make difficult decisions concerning settlement expansion in the territories. Her address to the Palestinians is due to be carried live by the PNA radio, Voice of Palestine. Albright also had on her agenda a meeting queued with opposition Labour Party leader Ehud Barak. A day before his meeting with Albright, Barak strongly attacked the present government and warned Netanyahu during the Knesset Tuesday meeting that you are heading towards a dead end." "If this continues, you wont be able to stop the situation from degenerating. I am warning you against an armed Intifada that is weeks away, and confrontation with Lebanon and Syria in the long term. We will win, but when we finish burying people there will be no answer as to why we reached this stage and what good the war did us," Barak said.

Previous Stories:
  Waiting for Albright   (9/9/1997)
  Albright is coming . Hamas arrests while Levy and Netanyahu fight it out   (9/8/1997)

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