Analysis: Facing uphill battle in Mideast, Rice remains hopeful

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice emerged from three-way talks with Palestinians in a good mood, joking and laughing with reporters -- so much so that her guest, U.N. Secretary-General for Somalia Ahmedou Ould-Abdalla, wanted in on the joke.

What, one might ask, does Rice have to smile about when it comes to the Middle East peace process?

Even as Rice was meeting Wednesday with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Ahmed Qorei, the top Palestinian negotiator, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced his intention to resign.

In addition to the Israeli domestic political paralysis that is likely to ensue from Olmert's personal turmoil, his partner in peace, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, is hardly in a position to agree to a peace deal as he remains victim to Hamas' takeover of Gaza and struggles for relevance within his own Fatah party.

Add to that the fact Rice has only six months to nudge the two sides toward a peace agreement, their stated goal at November's Annapolis peace process.

By all accounts, Israelis and Palestinians have made progress in their direct talks aimed at reaching a deal but are far from the finish line.

"They were very fruitful," Rice said Wednesday. But she added, "The issues are difficult and they've always been difficult."

Olmert himself said that reaching agreement on Jerusalem, one of the major "final status" issues of the conflict, would be impossible by the end of the year. And the Palestinians have rejected an accord that doesn't deal with all of those key issues, including Israeli settlements, the borders of a Palestinian state and the fate of Palestinian refugees.

Despite those odds, Rice had reason to smile. The message she got Wednesday at the talks from both Israelis and Palestinians is they would continuing trying to shoot for a deal before President Bush leaves office.

That includes Olmert and three of the major candidates to succeed him: Livni, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Shaul Mofaz, the Israeli Defense Forces' chief of staff.

They all know, of course, that this worthy but Herculean goal is most unlikely.

If the political positions of the Israeli and Palestinian leaders alone are not enough to cast doubt on the possibility of a deal in such short order, the conditions on the ground should be.

Israeli settlements keep growing. The siege of Gaza leaves half of the Palestinian population in living in squalor while the other half remains subject to hundreds of checkpoints and roadblocks by the Israeli military. Many Israeli citizens live in constant fear of rockets launched by Hamas from Gaza.

None of that creates much of a climate among either the Israeli or Palestinian people for historic compromise.

Still, Rice and her aides insist that a deal before the end of the year is possible. Her spokesman Sean McCormack calls it America's "indomitable positive attitude and can-do spirit" that leads his boss to think this way.

Is Rice hoping against hope? Or are the parties humoring her with rhetorical promises they know they can't meet?

"Nobody is going to be the party pooper here," said one Palestinian analyst familiar with the negotiations. "It's very clear there isn't going to be a deal, but nobody is going to say that out loud. It's better to show the process is still going on."

The main complaint over the years about the peace process, however, is that there is more process than peace.

So why pay such lip service to the "process?"

Many Israelis and Palestinians remember the years immediately following the 1993 Oslo Accord, which first established a serious Mideast peace process, as some of the calmest years of the decades-long conflict.

The collapse of the Camp David peace talks in 2000, which led to the second Palestinian intifada and eight years of violence, mistrust and paralysis between the two parties, has shown the danger of no peace process at all. Leaving the State Department on Wednesday, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that another "Camp David failure is not an option."

Which is why McCormack and other Rice aides insist that she will continue to push the parties to their limit, but not so hard as to "break" the peace process entirely.

What that means, they say, is Rice is not naive. That even as she presses for a deal, she is mindful of handing over a functioning peace process to the next U.S. president.

All About Condoleezza Rice • Israel • Palestinian Politics