US President George W. Bush threw his full support behind President Mahmoud
Abbas of the Palestinian Authority (PA) last week, declaring the Fatah leader
"the president of all the Palestinians."
With Hamas, the Islamist political party backed by Iran and described by the US
as a terrorist organization, firmly in control of Gaza, the administration is
now attempting to bolster Abbas, who formed a new government in the West Bank
following the Hamas takeover in Gaza.
No sooner had Bush, along with Israel and the European Union, pledged to resume
the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars in financial aid to the beleaguered
PA, than neo-conservative commentators and some Congressmen criticised
Washington's public support of Fatah's "moderate" Palestinian government and
demanded that rigid conditions be placed on any aid sent to the Palestinian
territories.
"The administration should condition aid to the Abbas government on his
promoting reform," wrote Republican Congressman Eric Cantor in an op-ed in the
National Review Online. "Fatah must offer Palestinians something better than the
engine of corruption and anti-Israel vitriol it has always been."
"We have no choice but to support him. But before we give him the moon, we
should insist upon reasonable benchmarks of both moderation and good governance
-- exactly what we failed to do in the Oslo process," wrote columnist Charles
Krauthammer in the Washington Post.
Hidden between the lines is the belief among neo-conservatives that there is no
Palestinian "partner" for peace, that Fatah isn't the answer, and that there is
no near-term solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, a position that bolsters the
interventionist policies that have taken root within the neoconservative camp.
"The Palestinians are a backward people, indoctrinated toward brutality. They
don't rate a sovereign state or anyone's help until they civilise themselves,"
wrote Andrew C. McCarthy of the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, in the
National Review Online.
"We are enabling their hatred when we provide support without insisting that the
Palestinian people -- not just Abbas and Fatah, but the people -- convincingly
foreswear revolution, terrorism, violence, ethnic-cleansing, and the goal of
eliminating Israel."
While Bush's embrace of Abbas' emergency government appears to signal a dramatic
shift in US foreign policy, neo-conservatives need not worry about just how much
U.S. money will go to prop up the troubled Palestinian leadership. Even before
Hamas swept the January 2006 Palestinian elections, US aid to the PA was heavily
monitored, barred, and restricted by Congress, and it does not appear that
Bush's most recent overtures will translate into significant disbursement of
funds.
"The whole business of putting onerous conditions on Palestinians has created
the disaster that is occurring today. Equally absurd is the idea that the
neo-cons are jumping for joy over the idea that there will not be a Palestinian
state," said M.J. Rosenberg, director of policy analysis for the dovish Israel
Policy Forum (IPF).
"[Neo-conservatives'] goal is the destruction of the idea of a Palestinian
state, and it's as ridiculous and offensive as it was the first twenty or thirty
years when the Arab leaders were saying Israel was an artificial construction
that could just disappear," he said.
When Abbas came to power after the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004, Congress
imposed strict limitations on funds for the Palestinians and demanded that the
administration provide detailed reports regarding every dollar spent in the
Palestinian territories.
What little economic support the US does provide to the Palestinian territories
is channeled through international aid organisations, such as USAID and the
United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
"As we've seen in the past, Congress is more sacred than the Pope and places
conditions that are far more rigorous," said Ori Nir, communications director of
Americans for Peace Now, a Zionist pro-peace group.
Israel has also withheld between 500 million and 600 million dollars from the
Palestinian government since Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections in
January 2006. Under a 1994 economic pact, Israel collects income tax from
Palestinians who work in Israel and customs levied from Palestinian goods that
come through the borders.
On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced that Israel would
disburse 350 million dollars immediately, with the assurance from Abbas's
government that the funds will not fall into the hands of Hamas. Israel froze
those transfers once Hamas came to power.
"We need to see a new situation with the Palestinians as an opportunity which
will lead eventually to talks on forming a Palestinian state," said Olmert at a
press briefing following his Tuesday meeting at the White House. "We need to
strengthen the financial situation in the Palestinian Authority and to create
opportunities for cooperation."
When asked if pro-Israel lobby groups were in the process of promoting
legislation aimed at severely restricting the flow of aid to Abbas's newly
formed government, Josh Block, spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee, acknowledged that, at least temporarily, there was a general climate
of opportunity to support Abbas.
"We'd like to see [the PA] succeed, but we have to make sure that American
taxpayer money goes to the right place, under common sense conditions --
auditing, accounting transparency," said Block. "That kind of accountability is
what we would expect from anybody everywhere."
Other critics argue that while Bush's public support of Abbas and the "two-state
solution" is a positive step that reflects the realist vision of Secretary of
State Condoleeza Rice, but it is too little too late.
"It's better than nothing. It's half of a good idea," said Rosenberg. "It would
have been a great idea if they would have done it when it mattered."
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