QUESTION: I want to repeat something Ehud Olmert said yesterday during his speech. He said, "We are prepared to make painful compromises rife with risks in order to realize these aspirations." Do you think he has the support of the people in his country and do you think Mahmoud Abbas is willing to take similar risks in order to achieve peace?

SECRETARY RICE: I see in both of these leaders a kind of commitment to do precisely that, to take the difficult decisions. It's going to be very hard, Harry, because these are existential decisions for Palestinians and for Israelis, but I do believe that the great majority of the Israeli people and the great majority of the Palestinian people simply want to live in peace.

They want their children to have better lives. They don't want to live in circumstances in which terrorism is a daily fact of life. They don't want to live in circumstances in which Israelis occupy the territory of -- that was -- that the Palestinian homeland needs to be established on. And Tzipi Livni, the Foreign Minister, said yesterday that she looks forward to the day when the images of Palestinian children are not images of Israeli soldiers. I think that really says it all.

QUESTION: Can these men make peace on their own or do they need to be led? And will you lead them?

SECRETARY RICE: These two men have signaled their willingness to make peace, but of course they will need the support and help of the United States first and foremost and that's what we've been doing. But also, every country that was in that room, what was remarkable about that gathering yesterday was the breadth of support. From the non-Arab Muslim world, countries like Indonesia were there; from Africa, countries like South Africa, but most importantly, from the region, the key Arab states who came by consensus, Saudi Arabia at the level of Foreign Minister Prince Saud. Saudi Arabia, in 1991 in Madrid, was there as an observer. I think that says something about how far the willingness of the Arab world has come to try and support this process through to conclusion.

QUESTION: The reality on the ground, though, there were as many as 100,000 people, Palestinians protesting yesterday. You look at the newspapers out of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv this morning, people saying, "Unless our -- you know, the Palestinians can at least guarantee that there will be no more terrorist attacks, why should we even go to the table?" The reality on the ground doesn't seem to match the mood in the room yesterday.

SECRETARY RICE: Well, first of all, there are always reasons to say that there will be a better time coming. Well, what we've learned in this conflict is there isn't going to be a better time coming. You have to deal with the time that you have. Secondly, there will always be those who are opposed to peace, those who continue to harbor grievances, who don't want to overcome them. But that's what leadership requires and I saw in President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert an expression of the kind of leadership that is going to have to help overcome that sense of those who don't want to make peace.

QUESTION: We wish you good luck, Madame Secretary. Thank you.

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you very much.

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