"Settlement issues and violence issues are part of the road map obligations that neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis are moving fast enough on," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said when asked about [Dick Cheney]'s upcoming trip. "The vice president will continue to push them and to work with them, as they work through all of these issues, despite all the violence that is happening around them."

Perino said the flare-up in recent days between Israel and the Palestinians, which included Hamas rocket barrages from Gaza, the deaths of more than 100 Palestinians there in counterraids and the shooting of eight yeshiva students in Jerusalem by a Palestinian terrorist Thursday, had not been the impetus for the "long-planned" trip.

Perino said [George W. Bush] had asked Cheney to travel to the region on the heels of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's own visit there last week in order to "follow up and continue to work with the Israelis and the Palestinians on their road map commitments, the need to stop the violence and the need to have negotiations."