Ted Belman. I am surprised that the US took this threat seriously. The US over the decades have expended much effort and aid to protect the PLO and the PA, no matter what the provocations. That means they have a lot to lose should he make good on the threat. That doesn’t make it all the more realistic.
Netanyahu had a different response;
“Yesterday the Palestinian Authority discussed dismantling, today it is mulling uniting with Hamas. Let them decide whether to dismantle or unit.”
The US probably doesn’t want them to unify also because that would put the “peace process” in further jeopardy. For that matter, Hamas doesn’t want them to unify because that would in jeopardy all the money that the US and the EU give the PA and thus the share of it that the PA gives to their people who live in Gaza.
US to Revoke Aid to PA Over Threats to Dismantle?
State Department official hints that financial aid, political support for the Palestinian Arabs to be ‘seriously harmed’ if PA disbanded. Chairman Mahmoud Abbas threatened to dismantle the PA on Sunday, in a move which would dissolve the Oslo Accords and allegedly make Israel “vulnerable” to international legislation, according to some analysts.
“Of course [the PA disbanding] will have serious consequences,” US State Department Jen Psaki stated Monday to Yediot Aharonot. “Obviously this is not in the interest of the Palestinian people , and all that has been achieved will be lost.”
Psaki stated that the US would withdraw financial support for the PA, and for the Palestinian Arab people as a political body, in the event Abbas follows through on his threats.
“The US has made tremendous efforts to build Palestinian institutions in the PA, and so has the international community,” she explained. “The move will seriously harm the US-PA relationship, including in terms offinancial aid.”
The move may be another serious blow to US-PA relations, after Washington threatened to cut financial aid to the PA for torpedoing peace talks. The PA receives about $400 million annually in US aid.
Its as empty a threat from Abu Bluff as his empty threat last week to dissolve the PA. He wants to stampede a frightened Israel into rescuing the dead peace talks on his terms. But he will no more really unify with Hamas than he would ever make a peace deal with Israel. And you can’t expect a demonstrated serial liar, blackmailer, extortionist and terrorist to change his true nature any more than a leopard could change his spots. Abu Bluff is not indispensable to Israel and he has no power if Israel simply ignores him and treats him as irrelevant. There is no reason in the world for Israel to dignify his psychological warfare against the Jewish State with yet more unreciprocated unilateral Israeli concessions.