U.S. To Cut Aid, Europe to Waffle
The honest reason the U.S. is forced to go it alone so often in foreign affairs is that no one else will take action. Of course, there are exceptions, but compare this statement with the pre-war handling of Iraq, and you will recognize the impotent multilateralism of the UN and the European Union at a glance:
The European Union is ready to continue aid to the Palestinians but wants to see a Hamas-led government commit itself to seeking peace with Israel, according to a draft text to be studied by EU foreign ministers on Monday.
The 25-nation EU is the biggest donor to the Palestinians, giving 500 million euros last year.
That policy was thrown into question by the election triumph last week of Islamic militant group Hamas, which is on an EU list of banned terrorist organisations.
“The EU stands ready to continue to support Palestinian economic development and democratic state-building,” one EU diplomat quoted the draft as saying.
He said the text also stated the EU would expect the new Palestinian Legislative Council to back the creation of a government “committed to a peaceful and negotiated solution of the conflict with Israel”.
But there was no explicit mention in the draft of the consequences if the new Palestinian government did not heed the EU’s call to pursue peace with Israel. The diplomat said ministers could still decide to make amendments to the text.
Hamas is committed to Israel’s destruction and has carried out nearly 60 suicide bombings since a Palestinian uprising began in 2000.
In other words, Europe seems prepared to do…nothing.
Not so, thank God, for the U.S.:
The United States wants other nations to cut off aid to a Hamas-led Palestinian government, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said ahead of an international strategy session on Mideast peace prospects.
Rice ruled out any U.S. financial assistance to a Hamas government.
Humanitarian help to the Palestinians, many of whom are poor and unemployed, is likely on a “case-by-case basis,” Rice said Sunday. She indicated that the administration would follow through on aid promised to the current, U.S.-backed Palestinian government led by President Mahmoud Abbas.
“The United States is not prepared to fund an organization that advocates the destruction of Israel, that advocates violence and that refuses its obligations,” under an international framework for eventual Mideast peace, Rice said.
Let us hope Rice’s view prevails…there is some hope that perhaps not all of the Europeans are as squishy as the prepared statement suggests:
The European Union also cannot fund a Hamas-run Palestinian Authority if it did not renounce violence and recognize Israel, said German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
“Such a Palestinian Authority cannot be directly supported by money from the EU,” said Merkel on Sunday soon after her arrival in Jerusalem at the start of her first official visit to the region.
Our goal should be clear: force Hamas, from the outset, to renounce its call for Israel’s destruction and its commitment to pursue an independent Palestinian state that is respectful of Israel as its neighbor (with a clear statement of its right to exist); the alternative is the withholding of all funds save the most basic of humanitarian aid…
“The honest reason the U.S. is forced to go it alone so often in foreign affairs is that no one else will take action.”
You are right, and the dirty little secret of Europe and the U.N. and Jimmy Carter is that they are banking on our taking action, both here and in Iran. Secure in the knowledge that the ignorant cowboy in the White House and his cronies will do what has to be done, they can pontificate and moralize and judge to their hearts’ content.
i don’t know how to link, but no one would subscribe to where i found this anyway.
i’m sure the palistinians are all broke up about the US blathering:
Source: UPI
PA could get Saudi pledge of $100M
Date: Monday, January 30, 2006 12:09:56 PM EST
GAZA, Jan. 30 (UPI) — The Palestinian Authority’s financial bind caused by Hamas’ election victory reportedly could be resolved if Saudi Arabia funds its pledge of $100 million.
The pledge was made to PA leader Mahmoud Abbas when he visited Saudi Arabia last month, reports the Jerusalem Post. The report said the Saudis came forward after the European Union refused to transfer payment of some $60 million because the PA began raising salaries and putting more people on its payroll.
The bailout money would also give Israel and the world more time to ponder how to deal with the PA after the stunning landslide win by Hamas, says the report.
The Saudi money would be enough for the PA to pay January’s salaries and give it some additional breathing room.
Israel was scheduled this week to transfer about $60 million in taxes and customs revenues it collects for the PA, but the Hamas victory may have put that in doubt.
Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told reporters Israel has to be very careful that money it transfers would not later be used against his country.
My guess is that this is a trickier policy dilemma than it first appears. On the one hand, American taxpayer money should not be used to support a terrorist regime. On the other hand, if the West cuts its support, then it is likely that Hamas would turn to Iran as its sponsor. Iran is the country which has gained the most from the American invasion of Iraq: it has become much more aggressive from seeing American forces bogged down next door, and it has been able to extend its influence there as well. Much better for them to have potential allies among the Iranian Shia than to have Saddam in power as an implacable opponent. If it can also establish a client state in Palestine, then it could become the pre-eminent power in the region.
I’m not advocating keeping the spigots open to Hamas – I don’t know what the right course of action is – but I don’t think that this is the no-brainer that it first appears to be.
…”but I don’t think that this is the no-brainer that it first appears to be.”
Well gee, just ask your hero, the Peanut Farmer. He’ll know what to do…oh, wait, he was the one who legitimized Hamas in the first place, correct? Never mind…
Actually, the Israelis legitimized (and even helped fund) Hamas in the first place, as an attempt to undercut the secularist movement. Carter did, however, do a lot to legitimize Sadaam and support the Baathist war with Iran, so that would be a good place to criticize him on this issue.
However, a good write-up on the threats of Hamas from that drunken thorn in every liberal’s side, Christopher Hitchens: http://www.slate.com/id/2135098/. It provides some direct and concrete counterbalances to some of the regional causes for optimism I had quoted here (especially Bethlehem).
There is this concern for me, though: when Cuba turned Communist, they really wanted to cooperate with the U.S., not Russia, and it was our overwhelmingly negative response that sent them to the Soviets. Is it possible that we could be in a position to accidently force Hamas into a closer relationship with Iran? If members of their leadership are talking about being willing to negotiate an Israeli truce using third-party negotiation, is that so bad?
(I’m trying to be a lot more civil here: no insults, and I’m presenting a very valid argument against my own claims. If we could make this a more civil discussion it would be more productive, don’t you think?)
Owen, thanks for the tip on the Hitchens article – I missed that one and will devour it ASAP…
I have no problem with backchannel negotiations with Hamas (in the Kissingerian mode) to see if there is room for moderation. However, any aid we give should be humanitarian only, and should be dispensed by NGOs and not given to a Palestinian government that includes a Hamas that refuses to allow for the existence of Israel. A truce is no good if all it buys is time for the militants to regroup.
Hamas is the supplicant here, not the West – let it prove its own seriousness by offering something in return – a renouncing of its charter, or at least certain well-known elements of it….
I agree. I think that pushing the money through NGO’s would be a good way to go, especially if you used as a carrot the incentive for more if they show themselves willing to negotiate through back-channels. If Israel’s mood is unilateralism, it should be agreeable that the PA want to do the backchannel thing.
The biggest fear I have in assessing the potential for moderation is that it will be relative and capped. Afghanistan seems more democratic because women voted, but they’re still basically chattels there. Now, if democracy allows for a slow change in the right direction, then Afghanistan won’t be a complete muck-up. But if either the PA or Afghanistan only become moderate in relation to where they were but run into a glass ceiling, then it’s just going to mean trouble down the road.
That’s where I think it’s even more important that the carrot-and-stick of humanitarian aid should always be contingent upon the maintenance of regular, fair elections. If we are providing aid alongside the PA (Hamas did well because it spends an unbelievable portion of its budget on social projects) and securing regular elections, then we have that leverage that will require Hamas to moderate or risk being voted out of power. Of course, that means constantly threatening to suspend that aid if they are crushing opposition groups, etc., as well.
All of that is much better than playing the sanctions/embargo card, I think, because as much as people wanted to think that would shut Castro down, it just hasn’t, and it has given him the United States to use as a boogeyman, you know? One of the points that Hitchens makes well in his article is that the most important consideration is the Palestinian people, A) because it’s their government and B) because they’re the ones who are most directly deciding where this thing will go.
AE-
Exactly right.
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Peter-
I agree — it’s definitely a tricky issue, or at least in our interest to pretend that it is. Giving money to Hamas is useful for influencing their behavior only on the margin. That is, if we’re going to give them the same amount of money (either all of it, or none of it) regardless of their behavior, then we gain no leverage from it. Europe has leapt in with their decision to be irrelevant, while Israel and the U.S. are doing exactly the right thing — keeping Hamas guessing about how much, if any, they’ll be getting. This should encourage them to at least make gestures in the direction of moderation.