The US had already demonstrated that it is willing to use its humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the wake of the war in Gaza to pursue political goals. Now, the US is threatening to pull the aid all together unless the Palestinians do what they want. Ha'aretz reports:
About $900 million pledged by the United States to the Palestinians will be withdrawn if the expected Palestinian Authority coalition government between Fatah and Hamas does not recognize Israel's right to exist, Western and Israeli diplomats said Wednesday.
During her visit to the region last week Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas against forming a coalition with Hamas that will not meet the expectations of the Quartet.
Not only is the Obama administration following the Bush policy of boycotting Hamas, it is actually advocating against democracy. Ha'aretz continues:
Clinton discussed the issue of forming a Palestinian coalition with Fatah representatives, who told her that the new government would consist of non-affiliated officials whose chief task will be to prepare the Palestinian territories for new general elections.
She reportedly told the officials she believed holding new elections was secondary to building the bureaucracy of the Palestinian Authority. The Obama administration is adamant in maintaining the previous U.S. presidential administration's position of boycotting Hamas. Two weeks ago Clinton said lifting the boycott would damage attempts to reach peace in the region.
Wow. To summarize, the US stance is that Palestinian elections are bad and Israeli collective punishment against the people of Gaza will further peace efforts.
This story follows up on an analysis by Hasan Abu Nimah and Ali Abunimah in their article "Did Clinton sabotage a Palestinian reconciliation?" Besides discouraging a Palestinian rapprochement that many consider necessary for moving forward with effective negotiations with Israel, Abu Nimah and Abunimah point out the hypocrisy that the US would never consider similar demands on an Israeli government. They write:
While Israeli violence is tolerated or applauded, Israel's leaders are not held to any political preconditions. Prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu emphatically rejects a sovereign Palestinian state and — like his predecessors — rejects all other Palestinian rights enshrined in international law and UN resolutions. When told to stop building illegal settlements on occupied land, Israel responds simply that this is a matter for negotiation and to prove the point it revealed plans in February to add thousands of Jewish-only homes to its West Bank colonies.
Yet Quartet envoy Tony Blair, asked by Al-Jazeera International on 1 March how his masters would deal with a rejectionist Israeli government, said, "We have to work with whoever the Israeli people elect, let's test it out not just assume it won't work." Unless Palestinians are considered an inferior race, the same logic ought to apply to their elected leaders, but they were never given a chance.
It is ludicrous to demand that the stateless Palestinian people unconditionally recognize the legitimacy of the entity that dispossessed them and occupies them, that itself has no declared borders and that continues to violently expand its territory at their expense. If Palestinians are ever to recognize Israel in any form, that can only be an outcome of negotiations in which Palestinian rights are fully recognized, not a precondition for them.
The Obama administration is repeating the mistakes of the Bush administration by following this course. Much of the "hope" engendered by the Obama election was that it would abandon Bush's nation-building imperialist adventures in the Middle East. The US's policy of dictating political conditions and "solutions" on Palestinians will not weaken Hamas (will they ever learn this lesson?) or lead to an end of the conflict. This conflict will only end when Israel abandons colonizing the West Bank, recognizes Palestinian citizens of Israel's right to equality and respects Palestinian refugees' right of return to their homes and land. Ignoring these core issues will only deepen the conflict and delay a possible peace. Until the US is willing to use its power and influence to change Israeli policy, it's wasting its time.
Phil,
Both Palestinian elections and Israeli elections hardened to the right. The US has no alternative but to either force both sides to go against their electorate or bug out. Absent Hamas/Fatah agreeing to recognize Israel one can hardly expect progress.
Sadly, either "Transfer" awaits, or the US will have to play real hardball with both sides. The latter is impossible.
We are still war criminals. In this case we are merely co-dependants.
The Charles Freeman affair showed that if Obama sticks his nose out on this one it will be chopped off. He cannot do it alone. Period. We can expect the Lieberman/Schumer/ (Senate) and Cantor/Berman/Ackerman (House) coalitions to offer push back on any activity that criticizes or reigns in Israel. Where are the legislators that should weigh in with a different voice: Harkin, Collins, Cantwell, Murray, Webb, Lugar, Kerry,(Senate) and Jackson-Lee, Barbara Lee, Betty McCollum, Donald Payne,(House) and on and on – those that don't have Israel as one of their huge motivating/watchdog activities. They remain quiet and let this continue on….every one of them is aware of what is happening to the Palestinians….but all remain quiet….and this list of congresspeople is only a sampling. Charles Freeman was a finger in the wind for the Obama people and as of yet the Schumer/Ackerman crowd will receive no pushback from the rest of Congress. That is the real issue.
Remember Rachel. Lugar chaired the Senate Foreign Relations committee at the time of her death. His staff saw photos of the Illinois made bulldozer at work on the homes the day of her death. They sat quiet. They do nothing to stop the forces that make this their highest issue. Hands off.
How can Obama move forward….He cannot do it alone.
Our government elect depends on the moneybags jews just as the old feudal to early -modern european nobility cum electorate did, do. These jews are the eternal diaspora middleman between the grass roots and their governors. The nuance between capitalism and communism remains the same, virtually nonexistent in terms of who pays the price: the grass roots, serf or voting American. The Fed Reserve is neither Fed nor Reserve, ditto the financial matrix leading up to the current USA finance-economic predicament. The increasingly non-existent capital reserves are only matched by the increasingly leveraged US taxpayers–down to multiple generations from now.
The usual suspects waltz way to their gated communities, drawing up the modern economic drawbridge behind them and increasing their power over the post modern slaves. That the 1st Amendment is so easily
circumvented rests on the usual tactic: Doubletalk as in 1984 et seq, adapted to the current inflammatory pc rhetoric
and manipulated lies by omissions.
The center is not even given a chance to hold.
Both Palestinian elections and Israeli elections hardened to the right.
How so? If the traditional "left-right" paradigm is one in which the right side encompasses more of a state-sponsored, imperial mindset, and the left side is more of a populist, anti-establishment mindset, then the Palestinians surely moved further to the left with their election of Hamas (Israel has indeed moved to the right).
Hamas or Fatah officially recognizing Israel's "right to exist" has absolutely nothing to do with progress.
This silly game has been going on for the better part of 30 years.
Progress is when this charade is off the table…..
Steveieb,
Hamas or Fatah officially recognizing Israel's "right to exist" has absolutely nothing to do with progress.
Of course it does. It makes them the great ally of the Likudniks.
Dan,
In hardening to the "right" I am refering to becoming increasingly nationalist and viewing the other side as evil incarnate. This is so human and typical of continuing conflict. But there certainly are other usages.
I wonder what Chas' analysis is. I suspect both "sides" would be unhappy.
Another thing that irritates me is describing Chas defenders as
"anti-Israel." It is beyond the pale to describe MJR that way or even Phil most of the time.
It is a conflict of vision.
Withholding genuinely humanitarian aid is a mistake.
It is relevant for the administration to communicate that a PA that does not recognize Israel and has active relations with Israel puts all of Palestine into a state of war with Israel, a CHANGE and for the worse for all concerned.
I'm shocked, shocked that a government would demand reasonable concessions in exchange for almost a billion dollars.
Reminds me of Gilad Shalit. If you want the borders to be more open, quit whining about Israel tying it to Gilad Shalit and just release the poor guy already. What's the big deal?
It isn't Aid, it's bribery. Something US Congressman and women know so much about.
Thom, You're right. The US is way overboard in its demands.
Forget Gilad Shalit. Israel is holding something like 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, including many elected members of the Palestinian Assembly. You want Gilad Shalit back? Release the Palestinians. This bullshit about "recognize Israel's right to exist" is another question entirely, and it goes back decades. If memory serves, Henry Kissinger came up with it, knowing it would block any possibility of an agreement with the Palestinians. It's absurd on its face.
The Palestinians, by negotiating with Israel, have recognized its existence.
But STATES RECOGNIZE EACH OTHER. Israel is a state. There is no Palestinian state. Should one come into being, Israel and the Palestinian state will extend diplomatic recognition to each other.
Demanding that the Palestinians recognize Israel's RIGHT to exist is a moral question, and one to which no Palestinian can give an affirmative answer. You want the Palestinians to say that the state which has ethnically cleansed them from their ancestral homeland; has trapped millions of them in a ghetto-like existence; which kills and imprisons them by the thousands with impunity; which continues to colonize their land while stealing the water and other natural resources, has the RIGHT to do all this? Thom the troll thinks of this as a "reasonable concession." Trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto, should the Jews have "recognized the Third Reich's 'Right to Exist'?"
Oh, and then there's the other subtle question: what Israel are the Palestinians supposed to recognize? The one in the borders of the UN partition plan? The one within the Green Line, the armistice line from 1949? The one offered in the map on the recent Chabad poster that shows Israel including all of the West Bank? Or "Greater Israel," including all the occupied territories of the West Bank, Gaza, parts of Syria and Lebanon?
Why don't we first demand that Israel RECOGNIZE ITSELF by declaring its borders? At which point we shall see what the Zionist have seized, and what they say regarding the rights of all the inhabitants of those lands.
Meanwhile, starving a million and a half Palestinians to force their leadership to "recognize Israel's RIGHT to exist" is nothing more than terrorism.
Let's not even touch the fuller expression of this awful demand: "the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish State." Which, by the way, was asked of the United States when Israel declared its independence. Harry Truman, when handed the note, crossed out "Jewish State" and replaced it with "State of Israel" as the entity to be recognized by the United States. The piece of paper is in the National Archives. You can find a post documenting this, with a photograph, over at the Lawrence of Cyberia website.
Great post Jim. Thank you.