By Sue Pleming
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dives into two days of Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy Tuesday, hoping to shore up a cease-fire in Gaza and vowing to work for a peace deal that eluded her husband.
"This is a very difficult and complex set of issues," Clinton said before her arrival late Monday in Jerusalem.
Peace talks brokered by Bill Clinton broke down in 2000, his final year as U.S. president, and a new wave of violence swept the region.
The administration of President George W. Bush was criticized for making efforts in Arab-Israeli peacemaking too late. President Barack Obama has said it will be a priority and Clinton said she would push on "many fronts" early on.
"I feel passionately about this. This is something that is in my heart, not just in my portfolio," she said after an international donors' conference in Egypt where the United States pledged $900 million for Gaza and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.
"I know that it can be done," she said.
In Jerusalem, Clinton will meet key political players including President Shimon Peres as well as hawkish prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu, who is trying to put together a government after the February 10 Israeli election.
Netanyahu has abandoned efforts to form a coalition government with Tzipi Livni, the outgoing foreign minister who led the Israeli team in recent Palestinian negotiations and is also set to see Clinton.
Those talks, relaunched at a U.S.-sponsored conference in Annapolis, Maryland, in November 2007, were halted after Israel's December military offensive in Gaza, which was in retaliation for rocket attacks on the Jewish territory.
ROCKETS
Before arriving in Jerusalem, Clinton said she was very troubled by the continuing rocket attacks and reiterated the Jewish state had a right to defend itself, a message she will likely stress again publicly Tuesday.
"We call upon all parties to move towards a durable cease-fire but it is very difficult for any country to just sit and take rockets falling on its people," Clinton said.
She has also sought to show strong financial support for Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas and pledged $900 million in U.S. aid Monday, with a third going to help people in Gaza but the bulk aimed at boosting Abbas.
Abbas's Fatah movement is involved in reconciliation talks with Hamas and other Palestinian factions and Clinton will face questions over how the United States would deal with a unity government that includes the militant group.
At the aid conference, Clinton maintained Washington's tough line against Hamas and was adamant no money would go to the Islamist group, saying it must recognise Israel, renounce violence and sign on to past Israeli-Palestinian agreements if it wanted to come out of isolation.
Arab and European ministers pressed Clinton to push the Israelis to open up border crossings into Gaza and stop Jewish settlement activity.
But asked in Sharm el-Sheikh whether she would raise these issues, she sidestepped the question.
Wednesday, Clinton visits the West Bank to see Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, and in a departure from her predecessor Condoleezza Rice's more formal style of diplomacy, she plans to address students at a school there.
"To me, this is about what happens to the children of Gaza and the West Bank," Clinton said.
In Jerusalem, she will go to Yad Vashem, a memorial to the Holocaust, where she is expected to sign the visitor's book and lay a wreath as her husband did years ago.
(Reporting by Sue Pleming; editing by Andrew Roche)
