Correspondents in Jerusalem
ISRAEL agreed last night to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's emergency government, a measure designed to undercut Hamas Islamists controlling the Gaza Strip.
The money, Palestinian tax revenues withheld by Israel since Hamas came to power in an election last year, is part of an initial package to bolster Mr Abbas that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is likely to announce at a summit in Egypt tonight.
Israel wants to isolate Hamas economically, diplomatically and militarily in Gaza, which the Islamist group seized control of more than a week ago, while allowing funds to flow to Mr Abbas's Fatah administration in the West Bank.
The boost to Mr Abbas before tonight's summit at the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh came as Palestinian intelligence chief Tawfiq al-Tirawi said Iran had played a "big role" in Hamas's seizure of Gaza.
The withholding of the tax receipts over the past 15 months - now totalling $US700 million ($827million) - sparked a financial crisis for the Palestinian Authority, leaving it largely unable to pay its staff or contractors.
"We have taken a decision in principle to release the money," Mr Olmert's spokeswoman Miri Eisin said.
"We will discuss with the Palestinian President tomorrow, and with the Palestinian Government in the summit's aftermath, how we release thefunds."
Mr Abbas and the other Arab participants in tonight's summit, Egypt and Jordan, have been pressing for Israel to be generous in its support for the Palestinian leadership.
An Israeli government official said Mr Olmert's cabinet had approved the transfer of about $US350 million, short of the $US700 million.
Israel says courts have frozen some of the funds to cover Palestinian debts. The money will be given to the emergency administration in stages once a mechanism is in place to ensure it does not reach Hamas.
"The Israelis should release all our money," said Saeb Erekat, a senior Abbas aide. "These are Palestinian, not Israeli, funds."
Mr Abbas has previously accused "foreign elements from the region" of orchestrating Hamas's bloody takeover, but Major General Tirawi's claim last night was the first time a senior official explicitly blamed Iran.
"According to our information, Iran has played a big role in what happened in Gaza. Dozens of members of Hamas have been trained in Iran, and Hamas smuggled in weapons through tunnels not to fight Israel but against the Palestinian Authority," he said.
"The whole plan has been carried out in co-ordination with Iran, and Iran has been informed of every step."
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and
Putting all the eggs in Fatah basket
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
With the dust of Hamas' triumphant counter-coup in the Gaza Strip yet to settle, Israel and the United States have wasted little time on a counter-strategy, of supporting the rival Fatah organization in West Bank and trying to isolate Hamas economically and diplomatically. This they are doing by rallying the "moderate Arab" support for Fatah and, in Israel's case, by preparing for a full invasion of Gaza.
Yet none of these amount to a prudent response, and the best option would appear to be to let Hamas try its chances at ruling Gaza while various interlocutors in the Arab and Islamic world work on rebuilding the broken bridges between the two dominant Palestinian organizations.
Even the staunchly pro-Israel Washington Post has recognized the pitfalls of the Israel-US response, editorializing: "The most dangerous illusion to emerge from the US-Israeli discussions is the idea that Hamas can be isolated in Gaza while Mr [Palestinian President Mahmud] Abbas is built up in the West Bank."
An influential Hamas politician, Ahmed Yousef, writing an op-ed column in the New York Times under the heading "What Hamas wants", has reiterated Hamas' willingness to play politics with Israel, stating:
From the day Hamas won the general elections in 2006, it offered Fatah the
chance of joining forces and forming a unity government. It tried to engage the
international community to explain its platform for peace. It has consistently
offered a 10-year ceasefire with the Israelis to try to create an atmosphere of
calm in which we resolve our differences. Hamas even adhered to a unilateral
ceasefire for 18 months in an effort to normalize the situation on the ground.
None of these points appear to have been recognized in the press coverage of the
last few days.
Ahmed's last comment quoted above is indisputable. Case in point: Martin Indyk, a well-known pro-Israel pundit, has written an article in the Los Angeles Times that tersely refers to "the two-state solution, Palestinian style", omitting any criticism of Israel's iron-fist occupation policy and placing all the blame on the Palestinians, mentioning Hamas' attack on Abbas' presidential palace yet, rather curiously, failing to mention what Yousef has pointed out in his New York Times piece, the fact that it was precipitated by Fatah's attack on the home of democratically elected Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyah, which is precisely why the appellation "counter-coup" for describing the developments in Gaza is not altogether inappropriate.
The pertinent question now is whether or not Hamas will be given a chance to rule Gaza, with or without partnership with Fatah. Clearly Israel, which has commenced its air strikes and military incursions inside Gaza already, has no intention of allowing this to happen, hedging its bets on the collapse of Hamas rule one way or another, including the economic strangulation of the whole population, to bring them to their knees.
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Pertinent Links:
1) Israel frees tax funds for Abbas
2) Putting all the eggs in Fatah basket
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