Rice promises Palestinian rifles `won't be used against Israel'

Apparently Mahmoud Abbas' little speech telling his Fatah friends to turn those shiny new weapons they've received from the US against the Jews didn't go totally unnoticed by Rice and her pals at the State department.

Condi made a little reference to this when talking to reporters en route to meetings with the Saudis and other Arab League members:

"This is a train-and-equip program that is going to move over time, so it is not as if you simply arm the Palestinians on Day One and then have no input or control over what happens from then on," she said. "I think as a result you can maintain some control on what is being done."

Secretary Rice added that American military envoys have created "a plan for security forces that can be part of the solution, not part of the problem. And this plan is not just to equip them and train them, [but] it is also to professionalize them, to unify them, to put them under a single command.

"We continue to work on how to help Abu Mazen [Abbas] and how to help the Palestinian people to create governing structures and security forces that can actually secure the Palestinian people."

Of course, what Secretary Rice leaves out is that :

• The Palestinians already have the arms in their possession and no shortage of personnel

• That Hamas has already infiltrated Abbas' forces and is guaranteed to get a portion of the money and weapons, along with Abbas' terrorist wing the al Aksa martyrs.

• That under the Road Map, which Rice and the Bush Administration are still pushing, the Palestinians were supposed to end all incitement and terrorist violence against Israel.

Once again, our tax dollars are funding Palestinian violence against Israel, regardless of what Congress or the American people want. And the Palestinians and their leaders are, as always, not held to any account for their commitments.

The key to Middle East peace lies in forgetting entirely about the notion of a second Arab Palestinian state.