Very disturbing words from Condoleezza Rice, who appears to be lost in the same Foggy Bottom dreamland as all her predecessors: Israel reiterates Palestinian vote threat despite US plea.

Asked in a news conference Tuesday about earlier Israeli threats to disrupt the polls in the West Bank if Hamas stands, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged full cooperation.

“We would hope that the elections can go forward and that everyone will cooperate… because elections are fundamental to the continued evolution and development of the Palestinian process,” she said.

Rice reiterated the US view that there was a “fundamental contradiction” between Hamas’s armed activities and its plan to run in January’s poll.

But she added: “We understand that the Palestinian political system is in transition, that it is in transition toward a democratic system and that has to be a Palestinian process.”

And one of the signs of a “transition toward a democratic system” is massive stockpiling of weapons.

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Palestinian militants have managed to smuggle hundreds of weapons into the Gaza Strip since the Israeli pullout last week, a top army intelligence official told a parliamentary committee.

In the nine days since the army withdrew, Palestinians have managed to get hold of more than 1,000 Kalashnikov rifles, hundreds of thousands of bullets, dozens of rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launchers and a large quantity of explosives, Brigadier General Yossi Kupperwasser said Wednesday.

“All these weapons, which were in Sinai, have been smuggled into Gaza,” Kupperwasser, who heads up the army’s research division, was quoted by army radio as telling the foreign affairs and defense committee.

“The weapons stores in Al Arish have been emptied,” he added in reference to the closest Egyptian city to Rafah, which straddles the Gaza-Egypt border.