The Bush administration told Israeli and Palestinian leaders that they will need to show progress in their secret talks soon, or risk a potentially fatal erosion in public support for a process now in its sixth month without any obvious successes.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice relayed this message during meetings with both sides a little more than a week ago. Rice was reacting mainly to the increasingly pessimistic Palestinian assessments of the talks, but she warned that confidence was fragile among Israelis, too. (AP)