President George W. Bush will met yesterday with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at the White House, where they discussed a strategy for dealing with the Hamas takeover of Gaza and the future of a Palestinian state. With Fatah in control of the West Bank, and Hamas of Gaza, the United States and Israel will try to decide the direction of policy. Mahmoud Abbas said yesterday that the time is “ripe” for a renewal of peace talks, and the United States and Israel have freed millions of dollars in aid to Abbas's government. Hamas' surprise 2006 legislative victory ended decades of rule by Fatah. Abbas was elected separately and retained office through months of political impasse and upheaval. He tried a coalition government this spring, but he dissolved it last week after days of clashes in Gaza between his forces and Hamas that killed some 100 Palestinians. As a first step, Rice said she will ask Congress to rework an existing $86 million aid request for the Abbas-led government. At the same time, she announced a separate $40 million contribution to United Nations relief for Palestinian refugees, a gesture to the 1.5 million Palestinians living in increasingly desperate conditions in Gaza. “We are not going to countenance that somehow ... the Palestinians are divisible,” Rice told reporters. “We're not going to abandon the Palestinians who are living in Gaza.”
