An email from Gershon Baskin to Mahmoud Habash. (Image: Ma’an News)
This is a strange story. Ma’an is reporting on an odd gambit Mahmoud Abbas took in an attempt to release $147 million in US aid for the Palestinians. In a move brokered by Israeli activist Gershon Baskin, Abbas asked Raul Castro to release jailed American contractor Alan Gross – all to impress Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen enough to convince her to drop her hold on the Palestinians aid. Got that?
Ma’an reports:
What does an American jailed in Cuba have to do with the Palestinians? Emails stolen in May from a Palestinian Authority cabinet minister may provide a clue.
Posted online, the messages depict Palestinian officials desperate to convince a powerful Cuban-American lawmaker to lift a hold on $147 million allocated for civilian aid to the Palestinians.
The congresswoman, Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee and is one of the Castro regime’s fiercest critics in Washington. Gross is from Maryland but his plight is a priority for many of the lawmaker’s south Florida constituents.
Three weeks after Abbas contacted Castro, Ros-Lehtinen relented on half the funds — about $89 million — that she had withheld for seven months in protest of Palestinian efforts to seek membership in the UN. On March 23, the lawmaker sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton explaining that she would “no longer object” to distributing the aid for water programs, healthcare and food.
The letter made no mention of the Palestinian overtures to Castro, but a person involved in the campaign to free Gross said the congresswoman had agreed to consider releasing the money if Abbas succeeded. She was first approached with the proposal by one of Gross’ attorneys.
Baskin confirmed this account but said Ros-Lehtinen was also under pressure from the State Department and even AIPAC, an influential pro-Israel lobby group. And she was not the only one blocking Palestinian money; Republican Kay Granger of Texas had a similar hold in place.
Still, the Palestinians understood their intervention as necessary to appease Ros-Lehtinen, not Granger. Baskin said he initiated the talks as a goodwill gesture to Ros-Lehtinen
Ma’an’s story includes emails leaked (or stolen) from the office of Palestinian Authority’s religious affairs minister Mahmoud Habash.
Gross’s case has been a focus in the Jewish community and many have already intervened in his case including President Obama, Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, Rep. Chris Van Hollen in addition to Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI and former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.
Does this story reveal the underbelly of international politics or demonstrate what the Palestinians are reduced to as they survive on the whim of international aid? Probably both. Imagine any other international leader in this position – here was an internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people being forced to carry water for American Jewish community in the small hope it could convince a single pro-Israel congressperson to release US funds to pay for water, healthcare and food. The mind boggles. I wonder if some of the Israel’s friends in Washington, who just this past week were attacking the Abbas “kleptocracy” in congressional testimony (pdf), realize that Abbas is probably the best (or most pliant) Palestinian friend they’re going to have.
Does the US pay Abbas in cash or via secret Swiss bank accounts?
Abbas must be understood as a collarborationist. He is not elected. The reason why they attack him so viciously is simply because they know he is a toad, he will never fight back because his life depends on their largesse.
Of course, who comes after Abbas? That is the nightmare.
It doesn’t matter. Accounting standards don’t apply there, Israel’s “democracy” doesn’t apply there either. The Palestinians are on there own, unfortunately.
If true then sickening.
The phones this Gross character was passing out in Cuba were not your run of the mill cell phones but contained some real spook hardware that made it impossible to track satellite linkages. Basically, Gross was likely guilty of espionage and not just aiding the Jewish community to engage with the internet. Thus Abbas’s intervention can’t even be called a humanitarian gesture.
The Cubans want to trade Gross for 4 Cuban spies arrested in Miami.
a good read…on Mr Gross, the hero sent to the cuban jewish community.
exerpt from a short article…
“As one example of the CIA connections of these organizations, consider the disclosure by John Gilligan, Director of AID during the Carter administration (1977-81). “At one time, many AID field offices were infiltrated from top to bottom with CIA people. The idea was to plant operatives in every kind of activity we had overseas, government, volunteer, religious, every kind.” And Development Alternatives, Inc. is the organization for whom Alan Gross was working when arrested in Cuba and charged with being part of the ongoing American operation to destabilize the Cuban government.”
link to lewrockwell.com
Nice one Ad-Rock. Is this surprising though? Krauss has it right, this guy is a collaborationist, he’s part of the problem as well.
Disgusting. Quick Wikipedia search on Ros-Lehtinen reveals: A major individual campaign contributor to Ros-Lehtinen is Irving Moskowitz, a funder of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The Israelis get a steady flow of cash regardless of their behavior. That cash goes towards home demolitions, illegal sieges, diverting water sources from the OT to Israel and/or the settlements, military-grade tear gas, lethal bullets, distributing white phosphorus over barley fields and chicken farms, among many other good deeds. Palestinians must beg for a fraction of that aid from the very same entity that provides the resources to do said things. If I didn’t have other thoughts going through my mind right now, I would say the irony here is romantic.
Speaking of “regardless of their behavior”: Interesting documentary on “Renegade Jewish Settlers” link to youtu.be
Above is part one, of five.
Thanks for the rec Linda, it was an interesting documentary.
Israel is not interested in peace as a state. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have continued to build settlements and reached an agreement and various Jewish American interests went against Olmert when he wanted to compromise. These various interests are interested in ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from certain parts of the land and then annexing some land and granting citizenship to 20-30,000 Palestinians and leave the rest of the West Bank for the PA. That’s the goal. They can say they have no partner whether it’s Arafat or Abbas. They’re right. They have no power because Israel is not a partner for anyone.
There was a reason Arafat was eliminated. Abbas is the same scoundrel who is ready to accept a toilet seat as the office for his future state which does not have to be bigger than a telephone booth .But this exercise by Ilena -Roth shows to what extent American politics have been corrupted overtly under the noses of the media and the Justice Dept.
I would imagine Cuba could be willing to swap the USAID employee if the U.S releases their famous Miami five.
What would Ros Lehtinen say to that?
Maybe we can ask AIPAC to lobby for that move.
the five for the usaid employee…?
What’s also eye-opening here is that it seems that Gross was working specifically with Cuba’s community, for which he won some $500,000 in U.S. government funds. And despite that amount, the size of that entire cuban-jewish community seems to amount to something less than 2,000 people.
The real scandal here should that the USAID was willing to jeopardize the Cuban-Jewish community by involving them in some hare-brained spook conspiracy.
Maybe that is the point — create another 2000 Israeli immigrants.
Gross wasn’t working directly for the US government or USAID, he was working for a private “contractor” to a US agency.
Also Gross had a “private organization” he ran himself for Jews.
I have forgotten the name of the US agency and the ‘contractor company” but the scoop on Gross appeared at TWN and a few other sites. I think I remember the private contractor saying he was no longer working for them when he went to Cuba.
The whole set up and explanation was fishy as hell….the US would have no reason or benefit to giving satellite phones to Jews and only Jews in Cuba.
I can think of some in congress who might have expedited Gross’s mission and may have greased his path by having some agency give him the money for it to go help the Cuban Jews call their relatives more often…. LOL. It’s not like the Jews in Cuba were going to overthrow Castro for gawds sake….$500,000 for phone calls is about all it amounts to.