The Bush administration has consulted with former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton about Israeli-Arab peacemaking.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held talks with Carter and Clinton last week as part of her efforts to prepare for the Annapolis conference on Palestinian statehood, which Arab leaders are expected to attend.
“She’s trying to draw on the historical record and the experiences of others to see what she can glean and how that may be applicable to the current day,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday.
Carter, who brokered the 1978 peace accord between Israel and Egypt, has recently become a vocal critic of the Bush administration and Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians. Clinton, as president, oversaw accelerated Israeli-Palestinian peace drive which collapsed at the 2000 Camp David summit.
