To isolate Abbas, US prods Jordan to host Hamas-Damascus

This is so weird. Apparently both Saudi Arabia and the US want this. How does this weaken Abbas. For sure it weakens Abdullah. How can the US believe that Mashaal would be easier to deal with than Abbas? Really weird. The US could just cut funds to Abbas. Or if Obama thinks that is too destabilizing, he could always support Israel’s right to the settlement blocs and come out against the right of return as Bush did. That he would never do. What about moving to Gaza? Ted Belman

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report September 30, 2011,
Washington has played a strong card against Mahmoud Abbas’ push for UN acceptance of a Palestinian state and his playing hard to get for resumed peace talks. After some arm-twisting, Jordan’s King Abdullah agreed to let his main rival, the radical Hamas political leader, Khaled Meshaal, visit Amman. The Hamas leader arrived Wednesday, Sept. 29, for the second time since he and the entire Hamas leadership were expelled from the kingdom 12 years ago. He last visited Jordan in 2009 to attend his father’s funeral.

Jordanian Interior Minister Mazen Saket made it clear that the special entry permit covered only a limited stay. Some Jordanian sources explained it was granted on the grounds of his ailing mother’s admission to hospital.

However, debkafile’s Washington and intelligence sources report that the Hamas leader came to Amman for bigger fish: negotiations in the hope of permission to transfer the organization’s political headquarters and staff from Damascus to Amman.

The Jordanian King is flatly opposed to this step – especially now – given the Palestinian terrorist leader’s past history with the kingdom. He faces heavy US pressure, backed by Saudi Arabia, to relent. So far, he only agreed very reluctantly to Meshaal paying a short visit.

The Obama administration began pushing hard for the move when in the first half of September, the military rulers of Egypt decided to shut the door against Meshaal and his staff’s relocation in Cairo. At first, they were amenable, hoping to use the transfer to get at Syrian President Bashar Assad and weaken Iran’s westward drive into the Arab world. In the second half of August, they invited Meshaal to Cairo to discuss the transfer.

But in early September they changed their minds for three reasons:

1. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt’s earlier flirtation with Iran had gone sour and the generals decided it was not a good time to introduce a pro-Iranian Palestinian entity into Cairo’s unstable political scene.

2. Hamas-Gaza had become a major thorn in their sides. Its armed militias and terrorists had poured out of the Gaza Strip to seize parts of northern Sinai and were taking delivery of burgeoning consignments of Libyan arms through Egypt and the peninsula. The last thing Egypt needed, they reckoned, was for Hamas to gain a second organized logistic headquarters in Cairo.

3. Like other Middle East rulers, the Supreme Military Council of Egypt recognizes that Assad is on the point of finally crushing the popular uprising against his rule. They are therefore wary of unnecessarily antagonizing him. Accepting the Hamas political bureau in Cairo would be seen as a vote of no-confidence in the Syrian ruler’s chances of survival.

Washington’s decision to arrange for the Hamas politburo to move to Amman was motivated most of all by the wish to put Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in his place by having Hamas breathe down his neck not just from the Gaza Strip but also from Amman, where he maintains a large residence.

Washington was guided by four further considerations:

    – Khaled Meshaal’s exit from Damascus would divest Assad of a key regional power lever as well as excluding him from a role on the Palestinian issue;

    – His relocation in Amman would, it is hoped, eventually weaken Hamas’ ties with Tehran and the Lebanese Hizballah;

    – Washington decided to help Hamas to move house in its capacity as a branch of the transnational Muslim Brotherhood headquartered in Egypt, a movement whose interests the Obama administration opted to promote in the Arab Spring. At the same time, by refraining from pushing Assad out, the Obama administration paradoxically aided in the failure of the Syrian uprising and its Muslim Brotherhood spearhead.

    – The US administration sought to discipline the Palestinian leader for going through with his application for UN membership in defiance of President Barack Obama’s strong objections.

Abbas, his Palestinian Authority and the PLO have always treated Jordan and its capital Amman as their logistical hinterland and sanctuary. Abbas spends at least as much time in his Amman mansion as he does in Ramallah. Placing Hamas’ political leader cheek to jowl with him in his second home would pose a potential challenge to Abbas’ position as the sole internationally-acceptable spokesman for the Palestinian cause.

If after moving to Jordan, Hamas should one day moderate its extremist agenda, which calls for Israel’s annihilation and refuses to relinquish terror, Washington and Riyadh would acquire a second Palestinian option for negotiations outside Ramallah and the PLO establishment – or so it is believed in some US circles.

For more than a decade, the Hashemite king has kept Khaled Meshaal at arm’s length and physically distant from his following among the violent elements of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood leadership. His presence in Amman would strengthen those elements at a time when they are on the offensive.

But Abdullah found it hard to stand up to Saudi pressure which was accompanied by a guarantee that the oil kingdom’s clandestine forces would stamp down on any Hamas subversion against the throne. He therefore relented – albeit only so far as letting Meshaal pay a short visit to the kingdom.

September 30, 2011 | 13 Comments »

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  1. Linda Cohn,

    I don’t think it is so terribly organized as all of that, not for lack of trying.

    Glenn Beck – whom I agree with more often than not – kind of went off the deep end, in my view, in ascribing so much power to Soros. Yes, he’s the 35th richest man in the world…but what are the other 34 doing? And in the top five or so, might this echelon be populated heavily by Arab oil barons? And what are they doing? Sitting around naked, counting their money? One thing that annoyed me about Beck, is that even he didn’t have the guts to take on the Saudis. It seems that no one does….except Bob Baer and Mitchell Bard. They’re way more powerful than Soros or a bunch of has-been Nazis. But even they could fall like a house of cards if pushed from the right direction.

    Agreed that Obama is a puppet, but of whom? Given that screwing Israel is is most consistent policy position, that he NEVER backs away from in concrete terms (never mind the platitudes), I’d say Saudia. The UN is their playground, them and the rest of the Islamists they or the Iranians finance.

    This isn’t about “New World Order”…Soros couldn’t even topple GWB in ’04, though he tried.

    This is about a dying civilization that can’t compete with the rest of the world in any constructive or meaningful way. They’ve got three things going for them: Oil money, lots of bodies, and they believe very strongly in what they are doing, even if their belief system is a bunch of medieval nonsense.

    By default, they have a fourth thing going for them: Many in our leadership class – and by “our” I mean not just the U.S., but the West in general, don’t believe in anything, except a half-baked warmed over sixties ideology that may not be medieval, but is just about as nonsensical as what the Islamists believe. And central to THAT belief system, is that the elements of our civilization that would allow us to rally to defeat the Islamists – things like traditional values, patriotism, etc. (i.e., all that ‘corny boyscout stuff for bitter people clinging to their guns and religion’), all of that is considered bunk for unsophisticated chumps in flyover country. The coffeshop acedemia left/right coast liberal sophisticate set is “above” such dusty old notinos as that.

    Interestingly, these same clowns are impressed and intimidated by someone from another culture that has these VERY same values they scorn, but enlarged to a twisted and barbaric degree that seems somehow more “genuine” to them simply because it is foreign (I’ll bet they sure miss having the Soviet Union to make excuses for and side with against us…they looked powerful and invincible on the surface, too… they made a mockery of the “liberal values” professed by their apologists here, too…and look what happened to them…and unlike the Islamists, they at least had a handle on how to make a decent tank or aiprlane, or how to fight a modern war).

    The liberal cretins represented by the likes of Obama are both impressed and intimidated by the intensity and the fanaticism of the Islamists, but at the same time, regard them also as ‘unsophisticated’, so they try in turns to both appease them and to co-opt them. Sacrificing Israel on the altar of said appeasement is central to this ideology, and Obama reflects this in spades, perfectly groomed for the task by his Saudi-payroll handlers like Khalid Al Mansour and Rashid Khalidi..

    But, Israel will not cooperate. And a lot of Americans won’t either. For that matter, a lot of Canadians and Australians, to a greater or lesser extent, are getting fed up with this crap. Even some Europeans aren’t buying (e.g., Poland).

    Underneath all the smoke and noise, the Islamists are in fact very weak. The oil weapon is of limited use; they need to sell it or they’re broke. The only real leverage they have is the market they represent for finished goods (e.g., airliners) with said proceeds. But even the oil countries are plagued with many internal problems and instability…hard to keep things together when the de-facto ruling class – the clerics – insist on living in the 14th century. And the ones that don’t have oil, they are mostly broke and starving. Yet, Obama and Co. still stuff their collective noses up their behinds…because the alternative would mean taking a stand for all that above-mentioned “corny stuff” that only loons like Glenn Beck seem to believe in.

    I don’t see a New World Order on the horizon. I see chaos, yes, brought about by historically unprecedented incompetence at the leadership level. I see this all blowing up in their faces, and once the doo-doo hits the air conditioning apparatus, they are not going to know what the hell to do. Like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, this whole situation is going to get away from Obama’s abilty to manage it very quickly, to say nothing of the collection of stooges and idiots at the UN.

  2. I think Catarin was referring to Jordan here, not Israel.

    I don’t really consider Jordan an ally of anyone. They’re about keeping their necks and their palaces, and that’s about it. No matter what it takes.

    I don’t see them doing the U.S. or Israel any real good. If they are toppled by MB types, then so far as I’m concerned, that gives Israel the perfect excuse to annex J&S. If they move towards orderly, genuine Western-style democratic reform, the PRESTO, you’ve got your “Palestinian state”, and the PA is that much more clearly redundant and unnecessary (which is even the case of the MB takes over…they are unlikely to call themselves anything other than Palestinian).

  3. Not weird, not incompetent, not misinformed, Obama is doing exactly what his new world order puppet masters put him on the throne to do. And exactly what he believes in – usher in the one world gov’t. Create Facebook chaos in Egypt – bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power. 400 NATO bombing sorties in Libya – bring Al Quaida to power. Useful idiots in America turning our cities to Tahir Squares and ultimately leading to fascism and tyranny in this country – the exact opposite of what they think they are working towards. Our troops being wasted in Iraq and Afganistan, so when the useful idiots in America need to be subdued so those of us who actually work for a living can get to work, then UN troops will be called in to keep the peace. The need of the new world order to create wars and chaos, so that they can take overt control. Not weird, not incompetent, not misinformed, but EVIL, very evil, and extremely effective at achieving the ends of the new world order. Kissinger reportedly said quite a while ago, “Today the American people will not stand for UN troops on our soil, but the day will come, when they will welcome them.” Bill and Hilary Clinton attended a population conference in Egypt when he was President, I think, in which it was decided that the world population had to be reduced by some obscene amount, from 8 billion to a few billion. This has been planned for a very long time. Hilary Clinton announced she is leaving politics after 2012 – she wants to be president of the World Bank. The peace process is not, and never was, a peace process. It’s a war process. The Middle East is the tinderbox that provides the way for the new world order to create the chaos and wars they need in order to take overt control of nation states. Misinformed, weird? No. Diabolical, premeditated, yes. Also, most likely underneath the new world order, you will find 4th Reich Nazis, the descendants of the 3rd Reich Nazis who entered our CIA, NSA, State Dept., space program, etc. after WWII so that the Russians wouldn’t get them & we could win the cold war.

  4. RIGHT. Lets undermine King Abdullah and the Hashemite monarchy, the only sane Muslim goverment in the regio. Obama’s an idiot. What astounds me is the fact that he’s surrounded by American Jews who don’t walk out.

  5. You missed it. Obama does NOT regard Israel as an ally. He is a “third world activist” who hates his OWN country and the Jewish State equally.

  6. This once again shows clearly what a naif and incompetent Obama really IS. The sooner he’s replaced by a conservative Republican the better!

  7. Would you allow a poisonous snake to move into your den? I think this is convoluted thinking on the part of the U.S. and too much to ask of an ally.

  8. “weird” is an understatement except that I suppose Obama and the Saudis would find it easier to “keep track of” Khaled Meshaal in Jordan.

  9. Debka may be “suspect”, but the White House has Roshad Hussain and Dahlila Muhajid both working as advisers and both members of the Muslim Brotherhood……………this is a peculiar move and very suspect.

  10. Debka may say outlandish staff, but the White House has peculiar advice from Roshad Hussein and Dhlila Muhajid, both members of the Muslim Brotherhood and working in the White House……………

  11. I am always suspect of anything coming from Debkafile.

    That said, if this is true, it is almost comical, the lengths Obama and his Saudi puppetmasters will go to in order to get their little Saudi peace plan diktat shoved down Israel’s throat.

    Yes, as Ted pointed out, ah, wouldn’t just backing Israel be the logical reaction to open Palestinian intransigence? A no-brainer, and a reaction that EVERY prior U.S. administration, faced with similar difficulties, even the most heretofore anti-Israel, would have done without blinking.

    Obama, on the other hand, CANNOT bring himself to support Israel vis-a-vis the Palestinians. Period. Some “unshakeable” commitment to Israel’s security!!!

    Not that any of this surprises me. Still don’t trust Debkafile – they’ve said a lot of outlandish things in the past – but what is above is quite plausible, given everything Obama has done thus far.