Posted on 02/24/2006 11:47:22 AM PST by radar101
This was the main object of the US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice’s Middle East trip. With the promise of financial support from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf states and private Muslim donors, the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority government of Ismail Haniyeh is guaranteed at least half a billion dollars a year, or $40 million a month.
DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources: Saudi Arabian King Abdullah decided to pledge the financial support needed to prop up the Hamas-led PA government and maintain its ability to function. (During the first week of February, immediately after Hamas’s victory in the Palestinian elections, DEBKA-Net-Weekly 241, February 10, reported the failure of US attempts to dry up Hamas’s financial sources, as had Israel’s diplomatic efforts led by Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni). The king also decided that the Hamas should not be forced to recognize Israel, only to be more flexible in maintaining regular contacts with the Jewish states and honoring the agreements signed by the PA. The Hamas assented.
In maintaining Saudi support for Hamas, the king was guided by three main considerations:
1. To block Iran’s path to assuming financial responsibility for the PA. The Iranian offer was put forward by Ali-Akbar Mohtasahami-Pour, the head of the Iranian Aid Committee for the Palestinian Intifada, who traveled to Damascus for this purpose after the Palestinian election. His senior status indicates the great importance Iran attribute to its connection with Hamas.
2. As an extension of Saudi-Egyptian diplomatic-strategic collaboration on Syria and Lebanon
3. The plan Hamas leaders presented Saudi royal advisers for running the PA on a shoestring budget and eliminating graft. The nub of the Hamas plan is the elimination of 37,000 jobs in the security services and government apparatus. A thorough Hamas examination showed that those 37,000 jobs were fictitious and could be cut without massive dismissals, for a saving of approximately $400 million a year. This would pare the PA’s annual budget from $1.2 billion to $800 million.
Our intelligence sources further report that, as the preliminary to assuming financial responsibility for the PA, Abdullah pressured PA Chairman Abu Mazen to play ball with Hamas in setting up a unity government and prosecuting corrupt officials.
Abu Mazen instructed PA Attorney-General Ahmed el-Mourni to open investigations and conduct searches and arrests among Palestinians suspected of enriching themselves over the years by embezzling large sums of money the PA had received from the US, the Europeans, the Gulf states, and the United Nations.
Just a question: Gulf States =U A E?
One would have thought that Rice and the State Dept would have ironed this sticky issue out before pressuring Israel to withdraw from Gaza and therefore accept the road map to h*ll. Oh well, one more error in judgment. So who's counting. (rhetorical)
Much of this is Rice's fault. She let the Arabists in the State Department advise her, and as a result she got exactly what could be expected.
Developments in Israel and in South America over the past year have really disillusioned me about Condi's competence. It seems as if she has turned into yet another State Department shill.
Very disappointing. She had a lot of real promise when she started out.
Good point. Gender has a lot to do with this. They ain't gonna listen to no woman!
Bollocks. George Patton could have been SOS and Hamas would have won that election. Fatah was painfully corrupt, and had been throughout the Arafat period. Everyone in Palestine knew it. I only blame Condi's people for not signalling to her that Hamas was bound to win that election.
Once elected, no Arab nation was going to freeze them out. They had a popular mandate. Rice knew this going in. Forget what Debka is saying. This trip is about Iran, not Palestine.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
"I only blame Condi's people for not signalling to her that Hamas was bound to win that election.'
That's the problem. According to articles I have read, which seem to be accurate, Condi is consulting the Arabists and letting them run things. Those guys have a long, long track record of getting things wrong, possibly because they plan to collect retirement payments from Saudi Arabia. If an outsider can see that, why can't Condi?
Since here speciality is the Soviet Union/Russia, she needs advice. But it's her job to see that she gets reliable advisers.
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