Thread: Legitimacy of Palestinian Govt and the ME

Originally Posted by Ray

Sarkozy is inexperienced. Others don't matter.

Not to mention that he has just invited Hizballah to France for talks.

Has he?

God Bless!

U.S. Unfreezes Millions in Aid to Palestinians


By HELENE COOPER
Published: June 19, 2007

WASHINGTON, June 18 — The United States on Monday ended an economic and political embargo of the Palestinian Authority in a bid to bolster President Mahmoud Abbas and the new Fatah-led emergency government he has established in the West Bank as a counterweight to Hamas-controlled Gaza.

The American decision freed up tens of millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinians that has been frozen since the Hamas victory in legislative elections in early 2006. The European Union similarly announced plans to resume direct aid to the Palestinians, while Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel would release to Mr. Abbas Palestinian tax revenues that Israel has withheld since Hamas took control of the Palestinian parliament.

But in siding so firmly with Mr. Abbas, the Bush administration steered into new territory in its dealings with the Palestinians, as it essentially threw its support behind the dismantling of a democratically elected government. Mr. Abbas’s decision to strip Hamas of its representation in the National Security Council to form a new emergency government has already kindled a legal battle over whether he has overstepped boundaries laid out in the Palestinian constitution.

The American moves amount to a major step toward what some call a “West Bank first” strategy in which money, aid and international political recognition would be heaped on the West Bank, leaving Gaza to be ruled by Hamas, largely as its fief.

But Middle East experts said the Palestinian constitution might allow Mr. Abbas’s emergency government to remain in power for only 60 days, and Hamas, which won the last legislative elections, has indicated that it will not agree to new elections on Mr. Abbas’s timetable.

“We are going to support President Abbas and what he wants to do,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in announcing the change in policy. She said the United States would work to “restructure” and unfreeze $86 million in aid that was originally set out to help Mr. Abbas build up his security forces. It was frozen because Hamas would not renounce violence, was considered a terrorist group and did not believe Israel had a right to exist.

By diplomatic standards, the American response to the upheaval in the Palestinian territories has come about at the speed of lightning. It was less than a week ago that Hamas gunmen routed rival Fatah forces in Gaza, and took control over Fatah-run outposts on the teeming strip on the Mediterranean. Mr. Abbas called it a coup, dissolved the national unity government and announced a new cabinet made up of his allies and situated in the West Bank, where Fatah remains strong.

At least for now, the United States and Europe appear in agreement that perhaps the only way to salvage some advantage from the Hamas victory in Gaza is to bolster Mr. Abbas in the West Bank, in order to provide Palestinians there and in Gaza with a preview of what life could be like with a pro-Western government in charge.

Ms. Rice, in response to a question at a news conference on Monday, said she considered Mr. Abbas’s new government to be legitimate. “I think we will leave to the Palestinians issues of how they work through their own constitutional issues,” she said. “Our view, very strongly, is that what President Abbas has done is legitimate and it is responsible and we’re going to support that action.”

But Daniel Levy, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation and a former Israeli peace negotiator, said the American move to back Mr. Abbas “looks suspiciously like there’s an effort afoot to reimpose single party rule on the Palestinian body politic.”

President Bush, who is to meet with Mr. Olmert at the White House on Tuesday, informed Mr. Abbas of the policy shift during a telephone conversation on Monday. Mr. Abbas moved quickly to capitalize on the shift, telling Mr. Bush that it was time to restart Middle East peace talks with Israel, his spokesman said. That is something that Ms. Rice has been pushing but, so far, with little overt backing from Mr. Bush.

“Everyone has looked over into the abyss and seen what happens when moderates don’t come together,” said David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “What we’re seeing now is a second chance for everybody.”

Administration officials said Monday that Mr. Bush might use the coming five-year anniversary of his announcement of a roadmap toward a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians as an occasion to throw his weight behind a renewed push for peace talks.

Plans for a regional meeting next week between Arab and Israeli officials, along with representatives from Europe, the United Nations and the United States, were put on the shelf for now, Arab officials said. But in a telephone call with Mr. Olmert, King Abdullah II of Jordan urged Israelis and Palestinians to restart the peace process.

Officially, Bush administration officials insisted they would not write off Gaza, and Ms. Rice said the United States would give $40 million to the United Nations to finance relief projects there. “It is the position of the United States that there is one Palestinian people and there should be one Palestinian state,” she said. “We will not leave one and a half million Palestinians at the mercy of terrorist organizations.”

A “West Bank first” strategy would mean leaning on the Israeli government to dismantle settlements, ease up on travel restrictions for Palestinians moving around the West Bank, and release a substantial number of Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel, Middle East experts said. Such moves would probably require significant prodding from the Bush administration; it is unclear whether Mr. Bush, who has thus far refrained from pressuring Israel to make political concessions to Mr. Abbas, will actually do so now.

“This is as serious as it gets,” said Ziad Asali, head of the American Task Force on Palestine. “It is time to lift the siege off the Palestinian people. This is the time to open up the political and economic horizons, and wage a campaign for the hearts and minds of the Palestinian people.”

The Associated Press reported that a Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, accused the international community of hypocrisy, noting that Hamas had defeated Fatah in parliamentary elections in 2006. “This confirms the falseness of the international community’s support for democracy,” he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/wo...ld&oref=slogin

Though Fatah is the less virulent of the two faction, it has no legitimacy as far as Freedom and Democracy is concerned because the HAMAS, detestable that it is, won the election overwhelming and fair and square.

The unfreezing will obviously help the beleaguered Palestinians and give them a respite, but it is double edged (need I say more?). On a human being to human being basis, it is however a good thing.

That the US has sided with a faction that has lost in a the democracy hurly burly will not go well with the idea that US presence in the ME is to promote Freedom and Democracy and instead will give rise to the well worn statement - whiteman speaks with forked tongue!

It would have been better if the opening of the purse strings appeared as if it were done by a friendly third party's vehement urgings and that the US was only doing so because of the same! Or it could be tied up with some other concessions wrested out of the Arabs, which they would just love to yield to.

Concession expected out of Israel will not be forthcoming so easily since the current govt does not enjoy the confidence of the Israeli people.

The Current Palestinian Situation

Desperation Rises at Closed Border Crossings Between Gaza Strip and Israel

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/wo...html?ref=world

Hamas' Triumph of Violence

Hamas wants to rule the poverty-stricken Gaza Strip alone, a prospect that alarms neighboring Arab states. Meanwhile, rival party Fatah has declared a new emergency government in the West Bank as Hamas-control Gaza faces humanitarian disaster.

Hamas fighters pose in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' personal office after they captured it in Gaza.
Stateless in Gaza: Hamas' Triumph of Violence - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News

Total chaos befalls ME

More on the current Palestinian situation.

Brothers to the Bitter End

By FOUAD AJAMI
Published: June 19, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/op...=1&oref=slogin

'West Bank First': It Won't Work

By Robert Malley and Aaron David Miller
Tuesday, June 19, 2007; Page A17

Having embraced one illusion -- that it could help isolate and defeat Hamas -- the Bush administration is dangerously close to embracing another: Gaza is dead, long live the West Bank. This approach appears compelling. Flood the West Bank with money, boost Fatah security forces and create a meaningful negotiating process. The Palestinian people, drawn to a recovering West Bank and repelled by the nightmare of an impoverished Gaza, will rally around the more pragmatic of the Palestinians.
washingtonpost.com

What Went Wrong

By Dennis Ross


Nothing is more basic to statecraft than matching objectives and means. Sounds elementary, but it is not necessarily the norm in our foreign policy. Look at Iraq: It is the emblem of a policy that too often has been shaped by a mismatch between objectives and means. The administration's assessment was guided initially by the premise that when Saddam Hussein fell, everything would fall into place, not fall apart. The means we employed reflected that assumption. Now, with crisis brewing in Gaza and the West Bank, if we are to connect our purposes with the means we have or can ...

Free Article - WSJ.com

Palestinian incompetence, Western hypocrisy


By Rami G. Khouri

Published: June 18, 2007
BEIRUT:

It's hard to know who appears more ludicrous and despicable, the Palestinian Fatah and Hamas leaderships allowing their gunmen to fight it out on the streets of Gaza and the West Bank, or an American administration saying it supports the "moderates" in Palestine who want to negotiate peace with Israel.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice phoned Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday to underline American support for "moderates" committed to a negotiated peace with Israel, such as Abbas. She also called leaders of "moderate" Arab states to rally their support for Abbas against Hamas.

Surrealistically, this was happening when Hamas forces were routing Fatah's security forces to take control of all public facilities in Gaza, and Abbas was proving that the sort of Arab "moderation" he represents has little anchorage in reality any more.

Abbas declared a state of emergency and dismissed the Palestinian government, but the facts on the ground are that the Palestinian government is a fiction, and his state of emergency is a state of imagination. The "moderation" of Abbas and his Fatah movement was a noble nationalistic cause three decades ago. But Fatah's own incompetence and creeping corruption - especially after taking control of the West Bank and Gaza after the Oslo accords of 1993 - have turned the movement into an embarrassment that is little more than a pathetic poster child and crippled errand boy for the U.S. State Department..............................

Palestinian incompetence, Western hypocrisy - International Herald Tribune

H.D.S. GREEENWAY
Radicalization, despair in the Mideast

By H.D.S. Greeenway | June 19, 2007

ONCE AGAIN American policy in the Middle East lies in shambles.
It can be argued, as Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian scholar at Columbia University, has, that the current crisis in Gaza began with the response by Israel, the United States, Europe, et. al., to the elections for the Legislative Council of the Palestinian Authority in January 2006 -- the election that brought Hamas to power.

The Bush administration pushed for the election, over considerable Israeli doubts, in the American belief, at times naive, that democracy cures all ills. Once the Palestinian people had spoken, however, Israel and the West didn't like what the people said.

The Hamas victory "quickly moved from a crippling financial siege of the PA [Palestinian Authority], with the aim of bringing down the government, to an escalation of Israeli assassinations of Palestinian militants, and to artillery and air attacks in Gaza," Khalidi writes in his book "The Iron Cage, The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood." Almost as quickly Gazans moved to confrontation with Israel, which brought down even more destruction on their heads.

Hamas was as surprised by its victory as was the rest of the world. "We wanted, expected, to win about 30 percent of the vote, enough to have an influence in the Palestinian government," a Hamas official told me. "We didn't realized just how fed up people were with the corruption of Fatah."

Radicalization, despair in the Mideast - The Boston Globe

WHY HAMAS WON

UGLY IMPLICATIONS FOR IRAQ

Ralph Peters

June 19, 2007 -- HAMAS won its shut-out victory in Gaza with alarming ease. And the reason Hamas won is even more alarming: Fanaticism trumps numbers.

You'll hear no end of explanations for the terrorist triumph: Hamas was backed by Iran; Gaza is Hamas' base of support; some Fatah units ran out of ammunition . . .

All true. And all secondary factors.

Fatah's security forces in Gaza outnumbered the Hamas gunmen. Fatah had stockpiles of weapons and military gear (now in Hamas' arsenal). Fatah even had the quiet backing of Israel and America.

And Fatah folded like a pup tent in a tornado.

Hamas won because its fighters are religious fanatics ready to die for their cause. Fatah runs an armed employment agency under the banner of Palestinian nationalism. Most of the latter's security men are on the payroll because relatives or ward pols got them jobs. And they want to stay alive to collect their wages.

The result was predictable. Our government pretended otherwise. Now hairs should be standing up on the backs of thousands of necks, from the White House to the Green Zone.

Yes, Iraq is more complex than Gaza. But once you pierce the surface turbulence and look deep, the similarities are chilling: Iraq's security forces do include true patriots - but most of the troops and cops just want a job, or were ordered to join up by a sheik or a mullah, or are gathering guns until their faction calls.

WHY HAMAS WON By RALPH PETERS - Opinions | Scott Stringer | Adam Brodsky

I'm not sure how to interpret any of the recent events, frankly.

Peters is kinda being too simplistic in his analysis. Just because there were more of them, doesn't mean the Fatah security forces were better. They were mostly given conflicted orders from a confusing chain of command, their communications and intel networks were not nearly as sophisticated as Hamas, and they worked in uncoodinated fashion.

Numbers do matter, coordinated numbers that is. Next thing you know he'll be telling us that pure fanaticism is the only reason Hizbullah are able to be effective in battle. Puhleese... He himself falls into the trap of attributing their victory to secondary factors while discounting that Gaza is a Hamas stronghold. That doesn't matter? For intelligence gathering it sure as hell does!

Weak leadership and defending several sites. Hamas on the other hand had long prepared, and used the old technique of saying one thing and doing another. The Fatah commanders complained of having to spread their forces across several sites whilst Hamas grouped for each attack, took that objective and moved on to the next, dissolving into the populace between each attack. Civilians as cover, interesting to see Fatah complain about that.

Originally Posted by Parihaka

Civilians as cover, interesting to see Fatah complain about that.

Only when its inconvenient

AUGUSTUS RICHARD NORTON
Palestinian fantasy vs. reality

By Augustus Richard Norton | June 21, 2007

IN JANUARY 2006, Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections. President George W. Bush had insisted on holding elections on schedule, against the advice of key regional allies. While US officials described the polling as "fair and secure," the Bush administration demonstrated that it loves democracy only so long as our friends win.

In this case, it was hardly "our friends" who won, but Hamas. With the United States in the lead and plenty of arm twisting, the European Union, the UN secretary general, and Russia insisted that Hamas recognize Israel, embrace Oslo, and renounce violence.

The United States was intent to see the Hamas government fail. Not only did it work assiduously to block international funding, but it poured arms and money into militias controlled by the discredited nationalist forces that had lost the election. To add to the pressure, Israel refused to transfer tax revenues paid by Palestinians to the new government.

A prime beneficiary of US largesse has been Muhammad Dahlan and his Preventive Security Force, which was decisively defeated last week by Hamas. Dahlan, who is about as popular in Gaza as Ahmed Chelabi is in Iraq, is Washington's man.

The path from 2006 might have led in a different, more constructive direction if the Bush administration were not so captured by an illusory black and white approach to Hamas and similar Islamist groups. These groups are neither easily shunted aside nor ignored.

A wiser policy would have worked to implicate Hamas in the diplomatic process by insisting on incremental changes that would not only have been more palatable to the Islamist party but permitted it to demonstrate that it was winning some benefits in return for concessions. While the refusal of Hamas to concede the legitimacy of Israel is a core ideological value, the party also endorses a long-term ceasefire with Israel. The Hamas diplomatic position is actually close to that of Israel in terms of accepting negotiations as an incremental process. In contrast, the PLO spurns partial agreements and insists on moving to final status negotiations.

Violence between Hamas and its political rivals has been growing for months. This is why King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia interceded (to the displeasure of Washington) earlier this year. The resulting Mecca agreement created a national unity government between Hamas and Fatah but it could not stop the clashes between rival militia and police groups loyal to Hamas and President Mahmoud Abbas.

Having lost control of Gaza, Abu Mazen has issued an emergency edict to establish a government in the West Bank under Salam Fayyad, the respected economist. Israel promptly announced that it will release nearly $600 million in confiscated Palestinian funds. Both the United States and the EU will resume funding to bolster the emergency government.

For the foreseeable future there will be two governments, both claiming legitimacy. With Hamas controlling two-thirds of the seats in the Palestinians' equivalent of a parliament, the long-term legitimacy of the Fayyad government is by no means guaranteed.

The present Washington fantasy seems to be that the "good" West Bank government will become a model of diplomatic accommodation and a voice of non violence, as against the "bad" government under the elected Hamas leader Ismail Hanniyah.

This is a revealing fantasy, but it underestimates the well-honed capability of the Palestinians to see through diplomatic smokescreens. A Palestinian government that can deliver not just bread and jobs but a stable solution to the conflict would win a lot of credit, but a government that is merely a pliant dependency of the United States will soon lose its shine, especially given the absence of a sustained commitment to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Abu Mazen was extolled two years ago by George Bush as a democrat and reformer, but American engagement and support proved to be an empty promise.

Meantime, efforts to isolate Gaza under Hamas control will only reinforce America's abysmal standing in the Muslim world. Eighty percent of the 1.4 million people living in Gaza now live in poverty.

The United States needs to rethink its approach to Palestinian politics and peacemaking, as well as how it comprehends groups such as Hamas. The bloodletting in Gaza is a reminder that unless diplomacy makes room for all the major Palestinian players, the United States will only increase the vehemence and the cohesion of those who are left out of the picture.

Augustus Richard Norton is an anthropology professor at Boston University. His new book is "Hezbollah: A Short History."
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.

Palestinian fantasy vs. reality - The Boston Globe

There is no doubt that Bush loves Freedom and Democracy so long as that Freedom and Democracy is catapults friends of into positions of power.

Hypocritical, no doubt, but realpolitik nonetheless.

There is no doubt it is in the interest of the US to ensure that Hamas, which won the elections fairly, should fail. And why not from the US point of view?

Hamas has spearheaded mayhem and insecurity in Palestine. It has not indicated any signs of compromise. Therefore, Hamas in power means endless years of confrontation. The Israeli Palestine problem has gone for years. It is time there is peace so that the region become productive to the gain of its citizens. Endless violence is hardly the way to productivity or living on doles of sympathetic Arabs nations. A whole citizenry made into beggars without respect, except the respect forced upon by the gun!

However, it is unfortunate that Washington chooses its front men with scant disregard to the popular view. It is unbelievable that Washington backs the people of the genre of Chalbis and Mohammed Dahlan! No wonder, notwithstanding all the covert work put in in these areas by the US, it always comes a cropper!

Unless rethinks its strategy in the Middle East with more popular nuances to the Middle East people, things will never work out for the better.

If this trends continues, Middle East will explode and will lost to the West forever!

This should also be read:

The west has created fertile ground for al-Qaida's growth

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | The west has created fertile ground for al-Qaida's growth

Very worrisome indeed!

All the authors talk of lack of diplomacy and Bush's hypocrisy is all very nice except for one thing: in bloodied and open revolt, Hamas has swept away the elected government of Gaza and the West bank, killed the security forces tasked with keeping the peace, and imposed a totalitarian rule on Gaza.
Hardly victims of Bush's hypocrisy I'd say.

Remember this all started because Hamas refused to recognize Israel's right to exist. But at the same time Hamas was honoring a cessation in rocket attacks against Israel.

IMHO, the US has been extremely myopic in its handling of Hamas' election victory and is going to pay an awful price for it. How in the hell can we champion free and fair elections in the ME and then work to oust the winners because we don't like them. That's a bad message to be sending the rest of the ME.

Instead of cutting off funds for Palestine, the US should have taken a wait-and-see approach. Hamas won the election; we don't like Hamas; but we believe in free and fair elections; so be it. Had Hamas resumed rocket attacks on Israel once they were firmly in control of Palestine, it would then makes sense to cut off their funds and even retaliate. At least, then, we would hold the moral high ground.

It seems to me that many Palestinians voted for Hamas because of its skill in running social services; contrast that skill against the infamous corruption and incompetance under Fatah and it is easy to see why people wanted change.

And what's more, terriorist leaders and organizations tend to moderate their actions once they are in control. Afterall Isarel's former PM, Menachem Begin, was a big time terrorist in the fight to create the state of Israel, and yet he shook hands with Yasser Arafat and signed the Camp David accords.

The bridge has been burned; we're in a mess now.

Originally Posted by Parihaka

All the authors talk of lack of diplomacy and Bush's hypocrisy is all very nice except for one thing: in bloodied and open revolt, Hamas has swept away the elected government of Gaza and the West bank, killed the security forces tasked with keeping the peace, and imposed a totalitarian rule on Gaza.
Hardly victims of Bush's hypocrisy I'd say.

Pari,

How has Hamas swept away the elected govt?

Hamas claimed 76 of the 132 parliamentary seats, giving the party at war with Israel the right to form the next cabinet.

Therefore, Hamas won the the elections.

Hence, to stifle an elected govt is not Freedom and Democracy. To that extent it is hypocrisy and yet it is realpolitik!

Originally Posted by Ray

Pari,

How has Hamas swept away the elected govt?

Hamas claimed 76 of the 132 parliamentary seats, giving the party at war with Israel the right to form the next cabinet.

Therefore, Hamas won the the elections.

Hence, to stifle an elected govt is not Freedom and Democracy. To that extent it is hypocrisy and yet it is realpolitik!

By destroying both the opposition and attacking the president, or could Abbas still venture into Gaza and undertake his presidential duties? Fatah was part of the government and they are now either dead or have fled. I don't see how the government can still be regarded as that, when Hamas has literally destroyed it.
Is it usual for one political party to kill or depose another and still claim legitimacy as 'elected'? What of those who voted Fatah for the remaining seats?