U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in the Middle East this week, on a mission on behalf of President George W. Bush. Her objective is to meet with "moderate leaders" in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority and Israel in order to create a political and economic lever to push forward the stalled Palestinian cart. PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is pushing the cart in one direction, while Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal is pulling the other way. PA President Ismail Haniyeh, who is sitting in the cart, is wavering whom to support, while meanwhile he must act with Abbas to quiet the violent struggle between their respective factions, Hamas and Fatah.

The declared objective is positive - to persuade the Palestinians to abandon terror, recognize Israel's existence and implement the agreements. Bush and Rice would like to remind the Palestinians that Hamas' victory at the polls some eight months ago stemmed from public support for the movement's platform of efficient, noncorrupt administration. The refusal of the Hamas leaders to moderate their rigid line, under pressure from their Damascus headquarters, has led to the dashing of the Palestinians' hopes. The situation in Gaza is worse now than it was a year ago, before Israel evacuated the settlements and left the Philadelphi route. This is true also of Sderot and other southern communities. The Haniyeh government has caused troubles for both sides, and the worst of this is its failure to prevent terror attacks, the digging of tunnels and abduction attempts.

The current crisis in the region, which peaked with the Lebanon war, started with June 25's fatal attack on Israeli soil by Hamas and other terrorist organizations, during which the soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped. Negotiations for his return have been going on for almost three months now, with Egypt and Qatar mediating. An agreement could have significantly improved the situation, with a far-reaching deal including a cease-fire as well as the release of prisoners. However, negotiations have been torpedoed by Meshal, whose patrons are the regimes in Damascus and Tehran. Meanwhile, huge quantities of arms and ammunition continue to flow from Egypt to Gaza, where Hamas plans to use them for Hezbollah-style achievements against Israel.

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In the two years left before the 2008 elections, Bush and Rice are hoping to give new momentum to an Arab-Israeli peace that includes an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. This is a lofty aspiration, anchored in Bush's precedent-setting support for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel and for the "road map," which outlines the steps to this goal. Yasser Arafat's death, Abbas' ascendance to the presidency and the disengagement from Gaza raised hopes for progress, but Hamas' election victory and the success of Israel's most extreme opponents in the Lebanon war are threatening to push back this effort.

The West Bank, which seemingly has disappeared from the map of Israeli-Palestinian conflict zones, is teeming with potential suicide bombers who have been thwarted by the Shin Bet security service, the Israel Defense Forces and the separation fence. The lesson is that security is a necessary pre-condition for peace. Israelis, for the most part, are prepared to make concessions over territory in return for peace, but they are not prepared to sacrifice their security and leave it in the hands of Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria or Iran. The immediate challenge facing Rice is to bring about Shalit's release, to stop the terror from Gaza and seal off the Philadelphi route, lest her visit turn into a prologue for war rather than peace.