Rice trip to test waters on Mideast peace

WASHINGTON, Oct 1 (Reuters) U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will test the waters for a renewed push on Arab-Israeli peace when she visits the Middle East this week despite what analysts regard as huge obstacles.

Rice leaves today night on a journey that takes her to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian territories -- her first trip to the region since a July visit at the height of the war between Israel and Hizbollah militants in Lebanon.

Arab leaders argue that the 34-day war, in which at least 1,100 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 157 Israelis, most of them soldiers, died, vividly illustrated the danger of leaving the core West Asia dispute unresolved.

Critics believe U.S. President George W. Bush has never devoted sufficient time to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- a charge that makes U.S. officials bristle -- and some are skeptical Rice's trip heralds any new, sustained focus.

Some analysts suspect the Bush administration may wish to appear engaged on the issue to placate Arab and European allies whose support Washington needs on issues from curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions to cooperating on counter terrorism.

Others argued the prospects for any kind of peace effort are severely limited by divisions among the Palestinians and the political weakness of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, whose popularity plunged as a result of the Lebanon war.

''My feeling is that in a pretty fundamental way the Israelis and the Palestinians and the Lebanese all have desperate internal crises ... and not one of them is about to do something dramatic, in my judgment, because the internal problems are so severe,'' said Jon Alterman of the CSIS think tank in Washington. ''So the secretary will go out, but it doesn't feel like the stars are aligning for a breakthrough.'' The Palestinian leadership remains riven between President Mahmoud Abbas and the Hamas-led government of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, which came to power in March after the Islamist movement trounced Abbas' Fatah party in January elections.

SUPPORTING ABBAS Rival forces loyal to Hamas and to Abbas fired at each other from rooftops near the parliament building in Gaza City day, while in the West Bank Fatah supporters started a small fire inside the offices of the Hamas-led government in the city of Ramallah.

The United States spearheaded a Western aid embargo against Hamas, demanding it recognize Israel, renounce violence and respect past peace accords before direct assistance resumes.

In a newspaper interview last week, Rice laid out a strategy whose core element was to support Abbas.

Her ideas included helping Abbas develop security forces; giving him more time to try to bridge the impasse with Hamas, which remains officially committed to the destruction of Israel; and channeling more aid to the Palestinians via an international mechanism that bypasses Hamas.

''I don't think we can afford to not engage on the Palestinian issues,'' Rice told the New York Times. ''I don't think we can afford to just let time go by.'' She also said she believed Gulf states were now more willing to help Abbas in tangible ways.

The State Department said Rice would meet Saudi King Abdullah, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as well as Olmert and Abbas on her trip.

She was also expected to have a group meeting with the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan and the six Gulf Cooperation Council states -- Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.

Asked if Rice's trip was likely to lead to much progress, one Arab diplomat said: ''While I don't expect a miracle in the first round, if you don't have a first round, you don't have a second round.'' Reuters SY DB2104