NEW YORK, 27 November 2004 — Word in New York and Washington is that “Israeli officials and Jewish organizations in the US were cheering President Bush’s decision to make Condoleezza Rice the next secretary of state and elevate her deputy, Stephen Hadley, to the post of national security adviser,” according to Forward, a New York Jewish weekly. The question is, what does this mean for the Arab world?

“I know them both,” Israel’s ambassador in Washington, Daniel Avalon, told journalists. “I have known them for many years and worked closely with them. They are both great friends of Israel...”

Powell, who submitted his resignation to the president on Nov. 19, was generally perceived by Israel and most Jewish organizations as a friend to Israel, but State Department officials say Powell had several significant disagreements with President George W. Bush and his national security team, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Powell believed that the administration should have been more forceful with Ariel Sharon’s government regarding the route of the Israeli security wall in the West Bank, while enforcing a freeze on the construction of settlements and dismantling illegal settlement outposts in the West Bank.

Rice was seen as Bush’s key conduit for foreign policy, eclipsing the State Department in the day-to-day handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other international issues.

Rice and her deputy Stephen Hadley, and her adviser on Middle East issues, Elliot Abrams, usually conducted discussions with Sharon’s representatives. Abrams is viewed as a neoconservative who, upon leaving the Clinton administration, is remembered for being openly critical of the Oslo peace process.

Abrams is expected to remain as director of the Middle East division at the National Security Council. He is viewed as being highly influential in developing Bush’s pro-Sharon Mideast policy, and as a supporter of Israel.

Hadley worked with Elliott Abrams to draft US endorsement of Israel’s Gaza Strip withdrawal, rejecting the Palestinian demand for a refugee “right of return” to their former homes in Israel and supporting some Israeli claims to the West Bank.

So now Rice finds herself in an interesting predicament — as secretary of state she will now have to lead the very organization she helped marginalize.

Analysts say Rice also backed the security fence, but was a key influence on Bush’s decision to ask Israel to change its route to bring it closer to the pre-1967 boundary with the West Bank. On a visit to the region in 2003, Rice was shown a Palestinian presentation about the fence and the effect it could have on their livelihood, and came away concerned that Israel was separating too many Palestinians from their agricultural lands.

Rice will now also have to change her focus from working for a constituency of one person to overseeing a large bureaucracy, and mending fences between the government’s internationalist foreign policy entity and an administration that often has ignored the State Department’s advice.

James Zogby, president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute, told Aljazeera.net: “Very few secretaries of state have shaped US foreign policy with the notable exceptions of Henry Kissinger and Jim Baker.

“Rice has no real record on foreign affairs and she is not an ideologue. I see her as less of an architect of foreign policy than an implementer of the president’s vision.”

Palestinians, meanwhile, see Rice as more willing than Powell to overlook Israel’s commitments under the “road map” peace plan. Hamas has called Rice “a Zionist,” and Arab media at times have ridiculed her.

“Rice is more hard-line than Powell. She is also very close to Bush and best placed to relate his thinking,” said Hassan Nafaa, a professor at Cairo’s Institute of Political Studies. But he underlined that he did not consider Rice a hawk in the sense of US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat called her “a very dignified person, with an analytical mind”.

“I think we will be working closely with her in the hope of implementing President Bush’s vision of a two-state solution in his second term,” Erekat said.