U.S. seen retreating from democracy push

[QueEx]

The Bush Plan Vs the Algerian Formula to Contest Hamas

<font size="5"><center>The Bush Plan Vs the Algerian Formula
to Contest Hamas</font size></center>

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis

February 19, 2006, 12:03 PM (GMT+02:00)

Through all the inexorable stages of Hamas’ rise to power in the Palestinian Authority, Israel’s caretaker prime minister Ehud Olmert was struck with inertia.

The Palestinian Islamic terrorist organization was allowed to run for election, emerge as victor, spurn demands to recognize Israel or disarm, yet take its seat in the new Palestinian legislative council and, Saturday, Feb. 18, reject Abu Mazen’s modest demand to accept international agreements with Israel.

Now the Hamas is on the threshold of forming a government, impervious to international expressions of disapproval or threats. And, finally, Sunday, Feb. 19, Olmert put a package of steps for action before the Israeli cabinet. His spokesmen say he had to resolve an argument between national defense leaders, who want radical action to hamstring Hamas, and the foreign ministry, which favors a gradualist, humanitarian approach so as not to antagonize the “international community.”

The fact is that, at this late stage, this argument is no more relevant than Olmert’s rhetoric with regard to the real steps he and foreign minister Tzipi Livni have approved. Those steps were not choreographed in Jerusalem but in Washington.

DEBKAfile’s Washington sources therefore cut straight to the chase to examine in general outline the plan the Bush administration has compiled for curtailing the Hamas regime, including the role assigned Israel.

1. To starve the Hamas-ruled Palestinian Authority of funding.

2. Foreign aid will be channeled directly to the Palestinian population through international organizations.

3. The Gaza Strip will be cut off from the West Bank so as to isolate the main body of the Hamas leadership and diminish its influence on the seat of government in Ramallah.

4. Careful orchestration of Abu Mazen’s actions as chairman of the Palestinian Authority to ascertain that he uses the next four to six months to restore and consolidate his own defeated Fatah.

5. He will then trump up a constitutional crisis, sack the Hamas government and dissolve the 132-member legislative council along with the 74-member majority Hamas gained in January, and call a snap general election.

6. This time, unlike in January, the United States will apply all its intelligence and financial might to make sure Hamas does not win again.

7. The Olmert government will act in conjunction with the steps laid out in the Bush administration’s plan of action.​

DEBKAfile’s Palestinian experts see little chance of this blueprint actually succeeding for three main reasons:

A. Reliance on Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party for practical steps has never worked – witness the mayhem in the Gaza Strip, the arms smuggling, the failure to rein in terrorists. Nonetheless, for twelve years, Washington has pinned its Palestinian policy on the man in charge, be he Yasser Arafat or Abu Mazen – a course that promoted anti-Israel violence rather than peace.

B. Hamas leaders have known about the Washington-Jerusalem scenario for at least two weeks - long enough for a head start for moves with their Arab and Muslim allies to balk the American plan. The Palestinian Islamic terrorist group belongs to and enjoys the support of the vast, powerful Muslim Brotherhood network spread out across the Middle East. In Egypt, the Bush administration is pushing for local elections on schedule - and a certain victory for the Muslim radicals with consequent shocks for the Mubarak regime. How will the US government manage the acrobatic contortions of supporting a Muslim Brotherhood victory in one part of the region and combating the same group in the next-door state?

C. Hamas can easily circumvent the plan to starve its administration of finances. Palestinian employees staff all the international organizations operating in Palestinian areas; these locals will not risk their lives by holding back incoming funds from the ruling Hamas. And personnel associated with Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah will be told to hand the cash over - after taking their cut.​

So where does this leave Israel?

Face to face with a fundamentalist Islamic terrorist power, which makes no bones about seeking the Jewish state’s extinction – if not today, then tomorrow. This situation cries out for bold, independent enterprise to bring the menace to heel before it is too late. Such an initiative may run parallel to the American master-plan, but Israel cannot afford to stand by for another American fiasco like the Palestinian election, which opened the door wide to Hamas.

DEBKAfile’s political sources see the advantage of a course modeled on the Algerian formula.

In the early 1990s, the Algerian army stepped in to prevent violent Muslim extremists from assuming power after their election win. Applied to the Palestinian arena, Israel, preferably in conjunction with the Americans, would instigate and orchestrate a Palestinian military coup d’etat in the West Bank, which would leave Hamas government isolated and hanging out to dry in the Gaza Strip.

This course would make use of current realities.

Control of the Gaza Strip passed to the Hamas anyway after Israel relinquished the territory six months ago; its re-conquest would necessitate turning the clock back at the cost of many lives.

On the West Bank, Israel has the means and connections to ensure the success of a coup and prevent the West Bank from deteriorating into a second Gaza Strip.

The main problem facing a bold step of this nature is the leadership crisis besetting Israeli politics in the volatile interregnum between Ariel Sharon’s disappearance and the March 28 general election. It is hard to see Ehud Olmert’s setup, or any of his rivals, exercising the vision, courage or independence of mind for an inventive strategy to pre-empt the Hamas menace.

http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1144

 

[Greed]

Hamas, Fatah pledge to defuse tension after clashes

Hamas, Fatah pledge to defuse tension after clashes
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
Sat Apr 22, 7:07 PM ET

The Hamas-led Palestinian government and President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah group agreed early on Sunday to try to end tensions between them after their supporters clashed in the worst internal fighting in months.

The armed confrontations in Gaza on Saturday, which wounded 20 people, followed the condemnation by exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal of Abbas's veto of a new Gaza security force, formed by Hamas and headed by a top militant.

"The two parties have agreed to call on our people to stop all forms of tension and to cement national unity," Fatah spokesman Mahar Meqdad told reporters after a meeting between the groups, mediated by Egyptian officials.

Officials from the groups did not elaborate on what practical steps would be taken on the ground to stop violence.

"Internal orders were given to guarantee there would be no return to friction," said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, adding that a joint Hamas-Fatah committee would be formed to discuss how to handle any future disputes between the groups.

The appointment of Jamal Abu Samhadana, head of the Popular Resistance Committees which has often attacked Israel, as leader of a new Gaza police force was widely seen as an attempt by Hamas to strengthen its grip on the Interior Ministry.

Abbas canceled the decision, a veto Meshaal said assisted a Western campaign to isolate the Palestinian government.

Students and militants loyal to Hamas or to Fatah took to the street, exchanging gunfire in Gaza and wounding 20 people.

Chanting "Meshaal is a traitor," thousands of Fatah loyalists marched in Gaza, some firing rifles in the air. Many also protested in the West Bank.

Meshaal said after the violence on Saturday that Hamas respected Abbas's authority and called for Palestinian unity, saying: "We were united during the (uprising) in confronting the Israeli occupation. Today we have to be united in politics."

The Interior Ministry said the new Gaza force would work from within the existing security establishment, headed mainly by Fatah loyalists, but Abbas's aides said only the Palestinian president could make decisions regarding the government.

The Gaza Strip has seen growing lawlessness in recent years among members of rival armed groups but Hamas and Fatah had rarely engaged in violent confrontations.

Hamas, a militant group sworn to destroying Israel, beat Fatah in a January vote to head the Palestinian government.

Hamas carried out about 60 suicide bombings during a 2000 uprising but has largely abided by a truce since last year.

Cabinet spokesman Ghazi Hamad said aides to Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh would meet to try to solve the Gaza security dispute ahead of a meeting between the leaders later in the month when Abbas returns from a visit abroad.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/mideast_...foUvioA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

 

[Greed]

Banks balk at sending funds to Hamas government

Banks balk at sending funds to Hamas government
By Adam Entous and Mohammed Assadi
Sat Apr 22, 5:20 PM ET

Under U.S. pressure, regional and international banks are balking at transferring funds from donors to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, Western diplomats and Palestinian officials said on Saturday.

U.S. officials said the Bush administration could take punitive action against banks that help provide money or services directly to the new government. As Washington has designated Hamas a "terrorist" organization, such assistance could be in breach of U.S. law.

The Bush administration has been spearheading a campaign with Israel to isolate Hamas, which won elections in January and took control of the Palestinian Authority late last month.

U.S. officials would not discuss any specific communications with banks regarding the Islamic militant group, whose charter calls for the Jewish state's destruction.

But U.S. Treasury Department spokeswoman Molly Millerwise said: "If an organization or individual is facilitating direct fundraising for Hamas, they open themselves up to action by the United States."

Nabil Amr, a top adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said: "There are warnings to the banks in order not to deal with the money coming to the Palestinian people and the Palestinian Authority."

Banks in the region rely heavily on "correspondent" financial institutions in the United States to conduct day-to-day transactions.

Palestinian officials said these regional banks were concerned Washington would put pressure on Wall Street banks to sever these correspondent ties if they helped transfer funds to the Palestinian Authority.

These U.S. banks include JP Morgan, Citibank, Bank of New York, American Express, among others.

HAMAS APPEALS FOR FUNDS

Shunned by the West and increasingly strapped for cash, Hamas has made urgent appeals in recent days to Iran and Arab donors to deposit funds into bank accounts in Egypt. The government is already three weeks late paying salaries to 165,000 government workers.

Amr said the problem was bringing funds into the West Bank and Gaza from Egypt. Qatar has donated $50 million and Iran has promised at least $50 million.

One of the Egyptian accounts was set up by the Arab League at the Misr International Bank, which French bank Societe Generale gained control of last year.

A Palestinian bank regulator said: "It is normal to think twice because (doing business with Hamas) will make difficulties for them in conducting certain functions."

Hamas officials say the United States triggered the financial crisis by pressuring the Amman-based Arab Bank to freeze the Palestinian Authority's main treasury account.

A Palestinian official said the Arab Bank recently turned away a transfer of $50 million from Qatar.

Hamas had intended to use the money to pay low-ranking employees 2,000 shekels ($435) each to help tide them over because full salaries could not be paid, the official said.

Local and regional banks have followed the Arab Bank's lead, balking at working with the new government for fear of facing U.S. sanctions and lawsuits.

By naming Hamas a "specially designated global terrorist" entity in 2001, President George W. Bush empowered the Treasury Department to impose financial sanctions against entities and individuals "that support" the Islamic militant group.

Under U.S. law, any foreign bank that refuses to cooperate with the United States in cutting off funding to Hamas could have its U.S. assets frozen and its access to U.S. financial markets denied.

U.S. banks that maintain "correspondent" relationships with banned foreign banks could also be found in breach of U.S. law.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060422...TlZ.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--

 

[African Herbsman]

Hamas Being Forced To Collapse

Hamas Being Forced To Collapse
Sam Bahour, The Electronic Intifada, 17 April 2006

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh waves to his supporters during a Hamas protest against aid cut to the Hamas-led Palestinian government at the Jabalya Refugee Camp in the northern Gaza Strip, April 14, 2006. (MaanImages/Wesam Saleh)

As many predicted, including myself (see The Third Intifada), the newly elected Palestinian government led by Hamas has already started to show an impressive level of pragmatism, however, Israel and the U.S. seem to not be interested. As a matter of fact the U.S., in specific, is leading a global campaign to isolate the Palestinian government in such a haphazard way, that they are also causing a troubling level of despair among the average Palestinian citizen as well.

The Observer (UK) recently reported on Mr. Yihiyeh Musa, a Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, who said Hamas had moved into a “new era” which did not require suicide attacks. He was quoted as saying, “The suicide bombings happened in an exceptional period and they have now stopped,” he said. “They came to an end as a change of belief.” (April 9, 2006).

One would think this is good news, especially after the death and destruction such bombing caused. This, one would imagine, should be even better news for Israel and the U.S. given they both have continuously linked such bombings to the reason that the never-ending peace process was unable to actually reach its destination, peace.

But cautious optimism was not the case. Instead, the U.S. wasted no time in dehumanizing the newly elected Palestinian parliamentarians and cabinet ministers. The war of words has been nearly non-stop since Hamas’ victory with all levels of government in D.C. making the case that Hamas can’t change and there is no reason to let them try. Next was a cessation of funding to the Palestinian government and a request for all other countries of the world to follow suit. Then Israel severed all Israeli bank ties with the Palestinian banking system, government related and non-government related. Only yesterday was a U.S. Department of Treasury decree making it illegal for Americans to do business with the Palestinian government. We wait to see tomorrow’s nooses.

All of this as Palestinians watch in dismay, trying to maintain a dignified life under an humiliating military occupation. The international community demanded Palestinians hold free and fair elections at all levels of government, so the Palestinians did just that, and superbly given their reality. But after voting a reflection of their bitter reality of being caged in open air prisons in their own homeland, the U.S. is now punishing them for not voting as the U.S. wanted.

Most Palestinians today are asking simple rhetorical questions, if the past government was, and it was, corrupt -- financially, politically and administratively -- and we voted them out of power, why can’t the U.S. see this as a positive development? What does the U.S. want, to bring back a proven corrupt government that made a mockery of international aid, including U.S. funds? Also, if Israel has blocked every attempt for Palestinians to solve their issues at the negotiating table, can’t the U.S. understand that the voting Hamas in office was a simple non-violent way to tell the world, end this occupation or take some of your own medicine?

Conditions on the ground have never been so tense. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which has always been a political conflict, is being converted, thanks to the U.S. and Israel, into a humanitarian crisis. The fear is that hungry persons react in unpredictable ways.

The greater fear is that if the U.S. and Israel are successful in collapsing the Hamas government and Hamas in turn decides to abandoned democratic means to express itself, we will be back where we started from, suicide bombings killing innocents and setting the agenda from outside any known political framework. Does this serve U.S. and Israeli interests? We are all wondering!


Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American businessman living in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian city of El-Bireh, the sister city of Ramallah. He is co-author of HOMELAND: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians (1994).

 

[Greed]

U.S. seen retreating from democracy push
By David Morgan
Thu Oct 12, 12:34 PM ET

The United States has quietly retreated from its high-profile push for democracy in the Muslim world, since the Hamas election stunned the Bush administration by bringing a violent militant group to power.

Despite President George W. Bush's continued public focus on democratization, analysts say U.S. policy-makers saw the Hamas victory in the Palestinian territories as part of a potentially dangerous trend following democratic gains for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

In each instance, elections were seen to boost adversaries of U.S. ally Israel, and in the case of Hamas and Hezbollah, groups labeled as terrorist organizations by Washington.

The experience in Iraq, which U.S. officials once envisioned as the catalyst for democratic change in Arab countries, has emerged instead as a disturbing symbol of sectarian strife.

"Frankly, the administration has retreated even from a passive push for democracy," said Michael Rubin, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

Washington is now largely silent about actions taken by Middle East regimes to suppress political opposition.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who made an impassioned speech about democracy in Cairo last year, did not publicly criticize Egypt's repressive tactics during her recent visit.

"A lot of regimes are detecting a green light to go back to the past," Rubin said. "It's undercut any kind of credibility the United States has, not just now but well into the future, in any calls for reform."

Policy analysts have warned that eroding U.S. credibility on democratization jeopardizes American efforts to use reform as a weapon against growing Islamist militancy and al Qaeda propaganda.

They say the United States faces a generational struggle in the Muslim world, where deep-seated suspicion about American motives is exacerbated by the repressive and corrupt practices of governments allied with Washington.

"Greater pluralism and more responsive political systems in Muslim-majority nations would alleviate some of the grievances jihadists exploit," according to a recently declassified intelligence report on global terrorism trends.

'PERCEPTION OF HYPOCRISY'

The credibility problem is complicated by Bush's use of the democracy theme in speeches. Before the U.N. General Assembly, he portrayed the United States as a friend of freedom but cited autocratic regimes, including Saudi Arabia, as reformers.

"People in the region know about the Saudi government. They're not naive," said Thomas Carothers, head of the Democracy and Rule of Law Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"The perception of hypocrisy is extremely high," he said.

Ellen Laipson, former vice chairwoman of the National Intelligence Council, a leading government think tank, suggested the White House may have now adopted a more pragmatic, longer term approach to reform.

"It is not something that they're going to be able to say they completed on their watch, or that they even know it is going to work on their watch," said Laipson, now head of the Henry L. Stimson Center, a public policy institute.

The Bush administration has supported democratization through programs such the Middle East Partnership Initiative, which has allocated almost $300 million over four years to reform, education and economic development.

But according to Rubin and former intelligence officials, democratization was never fully embraced by rank-and-file officials including diplomats, partly because the National Security Council failed to establish it as a priority.

Pro-democracy groups in Arab countries have become increasingly pessimistic about the prospects for meaningful reform. This year, Saudi liberals said they had abandoned hope the United States would pressure the government, even privately, to reform the absolute monarchy.

Even in Afghanistan, which Washington showcases as a democratic success story, observers cite a lack of follow-through on last year's elections for parliament and provincial councils.

"We are particularly concerned that there appears to be no effort going into helping build political parties ... as well as no talk of the district and municipal elections that are supposed to be held under the constitution," said Joanna Nathan, a Kabul-based analyst for International Crisis Group.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061012...LZZ.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--