By: David Bedein, The Bulletin
One of the cardinal assumptions of Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was that the world would not recognize a government headed by Hamas. She had been proven wrong, because Mahmoud Abbas has successfully sold the idea to the world, since he is the figurehead leader of that government.
[It should be noted that the Arabs demand the west not only force Israel to surrender but that the west also provide the financing for the “Palestinians”. It is a form of Jizyah and dimmitude. It doesn’t matter how many the Palestinians kill or how many commitments they breach or whether they are dedicated to Israel’s destruction, the west will find a way to help them. Ted Belman]
Last Thursday, Abbas met with the Swedish prime minister in Stockholm. Following the meeting, Abbas said that he found that there was a positive atmosphere that tended toward lifting the economic siege on the Palestinian government. Saeb Erekat, the director of negotiations in the Palestinian Authority, said last week that the PLO recently signed an agreement with SIDA, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, that the latter would donate $25 million in aid to the Palestinian people in addition to the aid that Sweden transfers to the Palestinian people by means of UNRWA and other international organizations.
Foreign Minister Ziad Abu Amr said last week that a number of countries, like France, Spain and Norway, intend to normalize their relations with the Palestinian government.
Different voices are beginning to be heard in the United States as well. While the U.S. administration is prevented by law from helping a government that is headed by a member of Hamas, which was defined by the United States as a terrorist organization, a spokeswoman for the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem said last week that financial relations with the PLO were not a violation of American law. She was referring to the possibility that the United States might take steps against the PLO similar to the ones being taken against the Hamas government, particularly in light of the recent Palestinian efforts to revive the PLO and the possibility of placing Hamas and Islamic Jihad under the PLO umbrella.
Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayad met last Wednesday with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington to discuss the financial restrictions currently placed on the Palestinian government.
Following the meeting, Fayad said that the secretary of state was understanding of the government’s needs to manage its banking affairs without restrictions in order to ensure transparency. Fayad said that the minimum sum the Palestinian government needed to get through 2007 was $ 1.8 billion.
Yet the U.S. government behaves as if this is not a Hamas government, when that is exactly what it is.
David Bedein can be reached at Media@actcom.co.il. His Web site is www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com
My sentiments exactly. It’s just completely absurd that we should consider the opinions of arab potentates, dictators and terrorist states. And as far as Europe is concerned, they depend on arab oil, not to mention they cower in fear of muslims. Their opinions on how we should deal with the Middle East are completely motivated by pleasing the arabs and muslims, not on what is morally right. It wouldn’t phase Europe one bit if the Jews of Israel suffered another holocaust.
I agree Bill L.,
Why is “the rest of the world” trying to get into the US if it is so bad? It’s bad everywhere in some aspects but you are freer in the US to pursue your own ideas and dreams than you are almost anywhere on earth.
We pay for it in some ways but we have decided that freedom is worth allowing the necessary evils that accompany it. Liberty beats a straight jacket of innumerable laws, regulations, and controls that protects you to the point you are an oppressed prisoner who is always in violation of some government edict and subject to arrest or fines at any given time — But I digress!
On the issue of recognition of Hamas I agree with Bill Narvey that doing so supports terrorism, heck, supporting Abbas does that.
All of this is going to reach the critical mass needed for a complete break down someday. It seems the longer it goes on the more precarious the situation for Israel. Unfortunately, also the longer it goes on the more numb people become to the potential danger. The normalization of tensions in the Mid-East has created an atmosphere that produces unpreparedness by making people weary of those who have continually cried wolf for so long.
The problem is, is that there is a wolf which is very patient, ever watching and waiting for the opportune time.
While disturbing, this news about Sweden’s shift towards tacitly recognizing the Palestinian unity government and the probable shift by other EU nations is not surprising. Sweden some time ago was already giving signs of doing just that.
Further the reductions in welfare benefit contributions proclaimed by the EU last year with Hamas’ election somehow with the voodoo economics of welfare benefits to Palestinians still managed by circuitous routes to exceed the past amount of welfare benefits doled out to the Palestinians in the year before.
That Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was of the view the world would not recognize a government headed by Hamas is puzzling.
In an article by Caroline Glick I believe posted here several weeks ago, Glick portrayed Livni as a very astute, cunning and forceful politician which was a portrait far different then the bumbling left wing fool she was otherwise portrayed as.
If Livni actually said those words about the world not recognizing Hamas, I wonder whether she did it for effect only.
Regardless that the EU is readying to recognize the Palestinian unity government and the U.S. is twisting to find ways to join the lineup to dole out more welfare monies to Palestinians, I doubt very much that any of that will change things as regards forcing Israel to accept Palestinian pre- conditions or terms of a peace agreement that clearly spell suicide for Israel.
All this does is stir the pot more and encourage Palestinian to be even more vitriolic in their Jew hating rhetoric because they will think they have the world behind them applauding them for their efforts. Such thinking also will embolden Palestinian terrorists to attempt more attacks on Israel and embolden Hamas to admit responsibility as it did just a few days ago for the last rocket attack on Israel.