Hillary Clinton vowed to keep up intensive U.S. efforts in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking if she is elected president.
“I believe that it’s important for the United States to maintain an active and involved role,” the Democratic hopeful said in a Reuters interview published Monday.
“I think one of the reasons why we are seeing a very dangerous situation there now is because the Bush administration backed off from staying involved and, where they were involved, much of their advice and proposals were counterproductive.”
Clinton, a U.S. senator from New York, pledged to be “fully engaged and involved” in the drive to found a peaceful Palestinian state should she succeed President Bush next year.
She said it is up to Israel and the Palestinians to decide how to handle Hamas, which has survived a U.S.-led diplomatic embargo on its administration in the Gaza Strip.
“Once we get back to a president who is fully engaged and involved and doesn’t walk away or impose unworkable conditions, we will, you know, have a much better idea about what is part of bringing the parties to resolution,” Clinton said.
Clinton’s husband, Bill, sponsored exhaustive Israeli-Palestinian talks while U.S. president in the 1990s,
only to see them collapse in bloodshed.
