News Brief

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.

Americans likely to vote in November strongly believe the United States should take Israel’s side in its conflict with the Palestinians, a poll found.

Sixty percent of those who say they will cast their ballots in the presidential election support Israel, according to a poll released Monday by Public Opinion Strategies and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research commissioned by The Israel Project.

Some 85 percent of respondents supporting Republican candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz), 62 percent backing Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and 58 percent of those for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D.-N.Y.) say America should stand with Israel during the current Israel-Palestinian conflict.

“The militant actions by Hamas and disarray among the Palestinians have moved Americans to side with Israel even more strongly than in the past,” said Stanley Greenberg of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research.

Some 84 percent of respondents support a two-state solution. Forty-six percent think that establishing a Palestinian state will bring lasting peace, and 93 percent agree Palestinians must stop their missile attacks before a two-state solution can bring peace to the region.

Another 84 percent of Americans agree Israel should remain a Jewish state and a homeland for the Jewish people. Only 20 percent believe that Jerusalem should be divided.

The telephone survey of 800 likely voters was conducted March 18-20. Three percent of the respondents identified themselves as Jewish. The poll had a margin of error of 3.5 percent.