When Rice starts scratching her hand...

This is the usual shortened version of my weekend column (with Aluf Benn in Jerusalem). One part of it was published here yesterday. You can read the column in full (it?s quite long this time, 2500 words, 800 of them in this short adaptation) here, or some of the highlights here:

Rehavia. Achievement

Condoleezza Rice's aides have become adept at spotting when their boss is irritable: she starts scratching one of her hands. The warning signs are described in "The Confidante," a new biography of Rice, by Glenn Kessler, the diplomatic correspondent of The Washington Post. In the book, Dov Weissglas, who was a senior adviser to former prime minister Ariel Sharon and spent many hours with Rice, is quoted as calling her "a magician in the art of language". Weissglas was well aware of the fact that the diplomatic language she used resembled a transparent covering for a fist.

In the book, Rice's best friend, Stanford University's Prof. Coit Blacker, relates what happened when she went to buy jewelry and the saleswoman brought her cheap earrings from the display: "Let's get one thing straight," Rice told the sales clerk, "You're behind the counter because you have to work for the minimum wage. I'm on this side because I make considerably more." The store manager quickly brought her the expensive earrings. The lesson of the story is clear: The secretary of state knows how to get what she wants, by force if necessary.

Rice had no reason to scratch her hand during her trip to the Middle East this week. After a series of frustrating visits to the region, which were characterized by unpleasant talks with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, she arrived in Jerusalem on Wednesday with an achievement: an initial agreement by Saudi Arabia to take part in the peace conference (the "international gathering") President Bush wants to convene this fall. It is obvious to everyone involved that Riyadh's presence will be crucial to the conference's success.

Egypt. Stability

"We are here to talk about the long term," U.S. Defense Secretary Gates told his Arab hosts at Sharm el-Sheikh. The United States, he added, has been in this region for 60 years, "and we will continue to be here." On Wednesday, the Pentagon's Web site headlined this additional quote by Gates: "Multiple administrations of both American political parties have concluded that stability in the Gulf region is a vital American interest - an interest and a responsibility we will not abandon." Gates is quite a bland official, who, in contrast to his predecessor, is not known for eyebrow-raising quips. He is better described in the pithy terms Winston Churchill used for the secretary of state of the Eisenhower administration, John Foster Dulles: "Dull, duller, Dulles." Still, in this fatuous remark at a press conference, Gates sent six years of American policy in the Middle East up in smoke. Where is the stability of Gates (and Rice) this week, and how does it sit with the criticism Rice herself leveled just a year ago at all the presidents - Democrats and Republicans - who "pursued stability at the expense of democracy"?

The second Bush administration this week returned to the formula of the first Bush administration: regional alliances, ensuring regime stability, binding those regimes to the United States by means of alluring arms deals and, yes, a regional peace conference.

Defense Ministry. Realism

Defense Minister Ehud Barak played the role of the "bad cop" during Rice's visit. As is his wont in talks with representatives of the international community, Barak cooled the ardent messages of Olmert, President Shimon Peres, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Vice Premier Haim Ramon. Contrary to their optimism and their demonstrative desire for a political process, Barak presented himself as a sober realist.

In his new post, Barak is increasingly sounding like Sharon. His English is better, but the messages are identical: The cause of the Israeli-Arab conflict is the Arabs' refusal to accept the existence of a Jewish state in their midst.

Washington. Policy

A few dozen listeners took their seats on Tuesday in the Politics and Prose Bookstore on Washington's Connecticut Avenue. They had come to hear Prof. Jeremi Suri, of the University of Wisconsin, talk about the hero of his new book, Henry Kissinger. Suri is interested in the meaning of Kissinger's career "for American society - not just politics." One of the book's main themes deals with the flamboyant use Kissinger made of his Jewishness. The Arabs respected him because they believed the Jews ran the world and that he, Kissinger, was "the top Jew"; and he constantly reminded the Israelis and Jewish leaders in the United States that he was one of them. Suri told the audience that the story he likes best concerns the gift the Saudis gave Kissinger at the start of every meeting with him: an edition of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."

Like Kessler in his biography of Rice, Suri, too, believes that the personal background of leaders and the worldview in which they were raised outweigh the strategic considerations in the formulation of concrete policy.