It was only natural for US National Security Adviser condoleezza Rice to make statements yesterday after what can be described as a oneupmanship of rudeness was inaugurated in Washington last week. The legislative branch took part in this oneupmanship by issuing resolutions showing full allegiance to the radical right wing in Israel. 
	
	
 The US legislative branch even outbade the Israeli right wing. If Rabbi Kahana were alive, he would have been regarded as a moderate person, compared to the US legislative branch. Even the most radical Israeli hardliners expressed the idea of the transfer more politely than the most senior, elected US bodies, which called on the Palestinians to give up the West Bank and look for what they called another homeland. 
	
	
 The Congress' resolutions and the statements made by leaders and members of the Congress revealed the US Administration's harbored intentions. Rice's statements came to dot the i's and cross the t's. They served as a crude example of the arrogance of power and attempts to control nations' resources, dictate policies, and impose leaders through pressure and coercion. 
	
	
 The flagrant attack, which Condoleezza Rice launched on the Palestinian leadership yesterday, demonstrates how international dictatorship is practiced by the most powerful country on earth, which claims to be democratic and an advocate of nations' right to choose their leaders. 
	
	
 Rice attacks the Palestinian leadership, which was democratically elected, as testified by international observers, including former US presidents. 
	
	
 However, she refrains from mentioning the elected Israeli leadership, which moved the Israeli army to occupy Palestinian cities, destroy homes over the heads of their owners, arrest thousands of innocent people, and carry out what many legal and international humanitarian circles described as war crimes or bloody massacres to say the least. A prominent Israeli official, Shim'on Peres, said when his army moved into the Janin refugee camp: "I am afraid that a massacre may have been committed in the Janin camp." 
	
	
 The Palestinians did not attack Israeli cities, did not arrest thousands of Israeli citizens, and did not blockade their cities and villages, as was done to the Palestinian people without exception. 
	
	
 Yet, the Palestinian leadership is denounced and attacked while the Israeli prime minister is praised. The US president described him as a man of peace, thereby prompting the world's ridicule sometimes and denunciation at other times. 
	
	
 So, why do Rice and the US Administration launch campaigns against, and interfere in the affairs of, the Palestinian leadership? Rice is aware of the fact that President Yasir Arafat remained under siege in his headquarters in Ramallah for five months, imposed on him by the superior Israeli military in violation of all the accords that were signed by former Israeli governments and guaranteed by the United States. 
	
	
 These accords explicitly stipulated that Israeli forces must not enter the Palestinian-controlled areas, which are called Areas A and cover all the Palestinian cities, naturally including Ramallah. 
	
	
 The US national security adviser should have called for ending the occupation and dismantling the settlements. She knows for certain that this occupation and the settlements, which the Israeli government refuses to remove, represent the only major obstacle to peace. 
	
	
 For its part, the Palestinian leadership has always sought a just peace, not submission to plans aimed at writing off the Palestinian issue and swallowing the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Moreover, the aim of these plans is to make the Palestinians yield to the dictates of the Israeli-US alliance, which seeks a mimic resolution to the Palestinian issue, which will perpetuate the occupation and facilitate the expansion of settlements. 
	
	
 No one, no matter who it is, has the right to meddle in the Palestinian domestic affairs or to impose on the Palestinian people a leadership favored by the US Administration and the Israeli Government and tailored according to their mutual interests. 
	
	
 Both Washington and Israel must realize that the Palestinian people are intelligent enough to read between the lines and understand the long-term aims behind Condoleezza Rice's statements. The calls in Washington for democracy, transparency, and corruption-free system are only made to serve US plans, not out of concern about nations' interests. 
	
	
 However, there are two facts that ought to be highlighted. The first is that the current Palestinian leadership represents the Palestinian people's will, political convictions, and national aspirations. 
	
	
 The second fact is that if Washington is interested in democratic reforms in order to combat terrorism as it says it is, it should pressure the Israeli leadership to end its occupation of the Palestinian territories and stop its repressive practices against the Palestinian people. The United States turns a blind eye to these practices, pretending to forget that they violate human rights and are continuously denounced by the international community.