US, Israel seek Palestinian Authority’s return to Gaza

WASHINGTON - With a ceasefire shaping up, the United States and Israel seem to be trying to oust Hamas from the Gaza Strip in order to allow the return of the US-backed Palestinian Authority of Mahmud Abbas.

Although they did not clearly say so, all the remarks on Friday from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni pointed in the same direction: the return of Abbas with international support.

"I think that there is much that can be done to begin to bring Gaza out of the dark of Hamas's reign there and into the light of reconnecting to the very good governance that the Palestinian Authority can provide," Rice said.

Rice was speaking before she and Livni signed an agreement aimed at preventing the smuggling of weapons into the Gaza Strip as part of efforts to clinch a ceasefire in Israel's three-week military offensive against Hamas.

"What we're doing in the Gaza Strip is not against the peace process, but it serves the peace process, because the idea is that Israel starts the peace talks with the pragmatic leadership in the Palestinian Authority," she said.

Livni has overseen the peace talks with the Palestinian Authority led by Abbas—who is also known as Abu Mazen—and his Fatah movement since they were relaunched in November 2007 under Rice.

Israel's chief diplomat did not reply directly when asked if Israel intended to restore Abbas to power in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas has ruled since June 2007 after ousting forces loyal to Abbas.

"It's a zero-sum game between (Hamas's Gaza leader Ismail) Haniya and Abu Mazen, between Hamas and Fatah," Livni said. "In order to strengthen the moderates and the legitimate government, we need to weaken the others."

Neither Rice nor Livni explained how Abbas could retake control of the Gaza Strip without appearing to be a traitor in the court of Arab public opinion.

But Rice recalled having negotiated in 2005 an agreement over access to the Gaza Strip, which calls for the deployment of international observers and Palestinian Authority security control over the territory.

Rice's spokesman Sean McCormack meanwhile suggested that Hamas had been "damaged" after the three-week pounding by Israeli forces.

"One thing we know for certain that we have learned from our experience in Iraq as well as in Afghanistan and elsewhere is there is not just a military solution to problems such as this, fighting terror," McCormack told reporters.

"You also have to bring to bear building up infrastructure, building up capabilities, bringing resources to bear to help the population so that they can make a different kind of political decision," McCormack said.

He was referring to Palestinian legislative elections in January 2006 where Palestinians voted in Hamas over Fatah.

"Because ultimately you're not going to solve this until you have a political solution," he said.

McCormack called for creating responsible security and other institutions like those being built in the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority has control. "That's the model," he added.

Meanwhile, Israel looks poised to call a unilateral halt to its offensive on Gaza after winning pledges on Friday from the United States as well as Egypt to help prevent arms smuggling into the enclave.

A senior government official said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's security cabinet is expected to vote in favor of a proposal at a meeting on Saturday night under which Israel would silence its guns even without a reciprocal agreement from Hamas.