Condoleezza Rice: "We Want an Immediate Cease-fire Too"

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RICE: Well, Hamas and Hizballah are terrorist organizations ...

TIME: THEY ALSO HAVE POLITICAL ARMS. I KNOW THIS IS SOMEWHAT APPLES AND ORANGES, BUT THE U.S. SPOKE TO SINN FEIN WHEN THE I.R.A. WAS BLOWING PLACES UP.

RICE: People are asking Hamas to make a choice. You can't have one foot in politics and one foot in terror. If you want to be in politics, then give up the terror, give up the violence. Has Hamas made a commitment to renunciation of violence and to the existence of the state of Israel? No. Have they been given an opportunity to make that commitment? Yes.

We have a Palestinian partner, by the way [President Mahmoud Abbas], who has made those commitments. And I for one am not prepared to undercut him by assuming that the future of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian state rests with Hamas.

When it comes to Syria, it's not as if we haven't talked. We have a chargé [d'affaires] in Syria. Colin Powell went to Syria. Bill Burns went to Syria multiple times. It's not a problem that people don't talk to Syria. It's that Syria doesn't appear to listen or respond. In the case of Lebanon, inviting Syria back into Lebanese affairs--as if Syria is some kind of broker of peace when it occupied the country brutally for 30 years--is grotesque. •