Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that Palestinians deserve to live under better conditions than they are subjected to and be "free of the humiliation of occupation" in a state of their own. She promised her "personal commitment to that goal." Also, "there could be no greater legacy for America." She alluded to her own background, up from a segregated childhood in Alabama, to make the point that progress once thought impossible comes to be seen as inevitable.
Rice's comments came at a dinner hosted by the American Task Force on Palestine, said to be an organization of Arab Americans that supports a Palestinian state living side by side with Israel.
Israeli media gave the talk high prominence, in a full rush of panic. Did she really say that? Is she serious? Are there roots of these feelings in her earlier associations with pro-Palestinians like Richard Haass and Brent Scowcroft. Does her emotional language reflect a change in American policy? How much should we worry?
We have seen before that Israelis panic quickly.
There are two indications that in this case, as well, Israelis panicked out of proportion to reality.
First, Secretary Rice included a key qualification in her endorsement of a Palestinian state: Hamas (currently the ruling party) must choose between remaining as a terrorist organization or turning into a peaceful political party. They "cannot be both."
Secondly, it was largely the Israeli media that gave attention to the press. It hardly made a dent in the New York Times, Washington Post, or Google.
So it may have been little more than lip service, paid to an organization whose third anniversary dinner seemed a good venue for making a pleasant statement for the growing Arab-American community.
Is a parallel between the Secretary's personal rise from a segregated childhood and the emergence of Palestine from the "humiliation of occupation?"
Not if the Palestinians can help it.
One looks hard, without results, for the Palestinian equivalents of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Adam Clayton Powell, John Conyers, Jesse Jackson, Julian Bond, Marion Barry and all the other African-Americans who contributed to the advancement of their community by playing according to the rules of the game followed by the white establishment.
To be sure, some of these African-Americans were occasionally bizarre, and at the edge of conventional behavior. Others like Malcolm X, Louis Farrahkan, and Huey Newton were, at least some of the time, over the edge. However, prominent Palestinians hardly approach the doubtful behavior of those African-Americans who skirted the boundaries of conventional behavior. More prominent are Palestinian mothers who praise their children for being suicide bombers, the prime minister of the Palestine National Authority, Ismail Haniyeh, who refuses to recognize the legitimacy of the Israel that controls the key to his people's future, the president of Palestine National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, who talks peace but never came close to using whatever power he possed to reign in organizations that prefer violence, and Arab members of Knesset who incite their followers and spend their own time in die hard oppositionist activity.
Americans and others who admire examples of personal accomplishment have no better model than Condoleezza Rice. Sadly, her story, and that of the African-American community, has provided no guidance to the men and women who have sought to lead Palestine.