US warns palestinians:want statehood? we'll cut aid
catefrances
Posts: 29,003
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8302360
US politicians have warned the Palestinian leadership that they could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in aid if they continue to seek recognition of statehood at the United Nations.
Experts, however, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that cutting off US funding, particularly to Palestinian Authority security programs, would benefit extremists and hurt Israel.
"Should the Palestinians pursue their unilateralist course, the hundreds of millions of dollars inannual assistance that we have given them in recent years, will likely be terminated," representative Howard Berman said.
"And that could well result in the collapse of the Palestinian Authority," the influential Democrat told the committee.
For weeks, Washington has deployed its entire diplomatic arsenal to try to persuade the Palestinians not to submit a formal request to become the 194th member of the United Nations, in the face of US and Israeli opposition.
The United States has repeatedly said that only direct talks between the two sides can lead to genuine Palestinian statehood, and the UN bid, expected on September 20, will only raise tensions.
Republican representative Steve Chabot told the committee that most of the $US600 million ($A582.64 million) in annual US aid would be withdrawn if the Palestinians did not change course.
"If the Palestinians continue on their current path, the question before this Congress will not be what portion of our aid will be cut, but rather what portion will remain," Chabot said.
But Elliot Abrams, who was a deputy national security adviser for president George W Bush, urged politicians against hasty action.
"Some of the programs that are up for cutting are actually in our interests and in the interests of Israel, such as the security programs," said Abrams, who is now an expert at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank.
"Generally cutting off the PA (Palestinian Authority) is a very difficult thing to do," he said, warning that the PA's collapse would benefit the extremist group Hamas.
Instead, he urged politicians to differentiate between the PA, which is an effective administrative body, and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which he said is the driving force behind the UN bid.
For this reason, he said, politicians should endorse a move to close the PLO office in the United States if the Palestinian UN bid goes ahead.
David Makovsky, a specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Peace, also urged caution.
"A total suspension of assistance would certainly be warranted if the PA took a pre-meditated turn towards a third intifada ....but President (Mahmud) Abbas's record strongly suggests that this is not his intent," he said.
Policy makers must ask who would would benefit from an aid cut-off, he argued.
"The group that stands to gain the most from a cut-off of US aid to the PA would be Hamas," he said.
"In stark contrast, the PA's cooperation and security relationship with Israel over the last four years has produced real and favourable change."
US politicians have warned the Palestinian leadership that they could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in aid if they continue to seek recognition of statehood at the United Nations.
Experts, however, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that cutting off US funding, particularly to Palestinian Authority security programs, would benefit extremists and hurt Israel.
"Should the Palestinians pursue their unilateralist course, the hundreds of millions of dollars inannual assistance that we have given them in recent years, will likely be terminated," representative Howard Berman said.
"And that could well result in the collapse of the Palestinian Authority," the influential Democrat told the committee.
For weeks, Washington has deployed its entire diplomatic arsenal to try to persuade the Palestinians not to submit a formal request to become the 194th member of the United Nations, in the face of US and Israeli opposition.
The United States has repeatedly said that only direct talks between the two sides can lead to genuine Palestinian statehood, and the UN bid, expected on September 20, will only raise tensions.
Republican representative Steve Chabot told the committee that most of the $US600 million ($A582.64 million) in annual US aid would be withdrawn if the Palestinians did not change course.
"If the Palestinians continue on their current path, the question before this Congress will not be what portion of our aid will be cut, but rather what portion will remain," Chabot said.
But Elliot Abrams, who was a deputy national security adviser for president George W Bush, urged politicians against hasty action.
"Some of the programs that are up for cutting are actually in our interests and in the interests of Israel, such as the security programs," said Abrams, who is now an expert at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank.
"Generally cutting off the PA (Palestinian Authority) is a very difficult thing to do," he said, warning that the PA's collapse would benefit the extremist group Hamas.
Instead, he urged politicians to differentiate between the PA, which is an effective administrative body, and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which he said is the driving force behind the UN bid.
For this reason, he said, politicians should endorse a move to close the PLO office in the United States if the Palestinian UN bid goes ahead.
David Makovsky, a specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Peace, also urged caution.
"A total suspension of assistance would certainly be warranted if the PA took a pre-meditated turn towards a third intifada ....but President (Mahmud) Abbas's record strongly suggests that this is not his intent," he said.
Policy makers must ask who would would benefit from an aid cut-off, he argued.
"The group that stands to gain the most from a cut-off of US aid to the PA would be Hamas," he said.
"In stark contrast, the PA's cooperation and security relationship with Israel over the last four years has produced real and favourable change."
hear my name
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
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Comments
But then the whole World knows this now.
And yet Americans still scratch their heads and wonder why they are hated, and why things such as 9/11 occur?
Clearly the wolves at A.I.P.A.C have gotten their teeth into him since then.
But Obama continues to throw Jews under the Bus. So who's rights should America be concerned with? The Jews or the Palestinians???? I put my Support with Israel.
...Palestinians cheered in the streets on 9/11. I don't know how many of them I'm worried about anymore.
*NYC 9/28/96 *NYC 9/29/96 *NJ 9/8/98 (front row "may i play drums with you")
*MSG 9/10/98 (backstage) *MSG 9/11/98 (backstage)
*Jones Beach 8/23/00 *Jones Beach 8/24/00 *Jones Beach 8/25/00
*Mansfield 8/29/00 *Mansfield 8/30/00 *Nassau 4/30/03 *Nissan VA 7/1/03
*Borgata 10/1/05 *Camden 5/27/06 *Camden 5/28/06 *DC 5/30/06
*VA Beach 6/17/08 *DC 6/22/08 *MSG 6/24/08 (backstage) *MSG 6/25/08
*EV DC 8/17/08 *EV Baltimore 6/15/09 *Philly 10/31/09
*Bristow VA 5/13/10 *MSG 5/20/10 *MSG 5/21/10
do you wonder why perchance?
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
Throws Jews under the bus? What are you talking about?
Because 9/11 was year zero, right?
Your not serious right???... Let's just give everYthing to Palestine. Hell he has given all our secrets to China but that suits you fine, right?
Who said anything about giving everything to Palestine?
This is about the occupation of land stolen during and after the 1967 war. But then you probably don't know anything about that, right?
And I'm not Chinese. But what secrets are you talking about? Or did you just make that up?
As far as Isreal stealing land, get over it. Jewish tribes settled this land 2000 years prior to 1967. But then again, I know nothing about that....
So you base Israel's claim to the land on something that may or may not have occurred 2000 years ago?
Sorry to burst your bubble, but that claim has zero legitimacy. We're talking about today's World.
'UN General Assembly Partition Resolution 181 of 1947, which established the Jewish state’s international legitimacy, also recognised the remaining Palestinian territory outside the new state’s borders as the equally legitimate patrimony of Palestine’s Arab population on which they were entitled to establish their own state, and it mapped the borders of that territory with great precision. Resolution 181’s affirmation of the right of Palestine’s Arab population to national self-determination was based on normative law and the democratic principles that grant statehood to the majority population. (At the time, Arabs constituted two-thirds of the population in Palestine.) This right does not evaporate because of delays in its implementation.'
'...the Bible pictures a stormy but basically continuous Israelite occupation of the land of Israel all the way to the Assyrian conquest. But a reexamination of the archeological evidence...points to a period of a few decades [in which Israel existed], between around 835-800B.C.E..."
In other words [...] the "Great" Jewish Kingdom existed in something like it's fabled extent for a tiny fraction of the period traditionally alleged. Even then, their boundaries never came close to the "Greater Israel" of contemporary Jewish fundamentalism. The rest of the time. Judah and Israel are thought to have been, for the most part, very primitive entities, devoid of literate culture or substantial administrative structure, extending to only a small, landlocked part of what is now called Palestine. The great structures of the Biblical era are, all of them, attributed to Canaanite cultures. Moreover, the inhabitants of Biblical Israel and Judah seem to have been, for most of the time and for the most part, practitioners of Canaanite religions rather than Judaism, or of various synthetic cults. These "Israelites" were not, that is, "Jewish" in one important sense of the term. The authors refer to the Biblical Kingdom at it existed as a "a multi-ethnic society." The idea that such a past could validate a Jewish historical claim to Palestine is simply ludicrous, even if it could be shown - which it cannot - that today's Jews are in some legal sense, heirs to the ancient Israelite Kingdoms.'
Too bad the UN is the most corrupt organization around. The best day for AmerIca will be when they leave our soil. I'm sure glad you live in China. Please stay!
why is it that the us will use all of its veto power at the un to block anything remotely critical of israel? the knowledge of this support is what allows the israeli government to act with impunity.
it is sad when the us stands on it's own against 97% of the rest of the countres with regard to doing the right thing.
we have to have conflict in the region to protect our interests there and we have to protect israel to keep our military over in that region. if there was peace there is no reason for us to be over there... by the way, we give israel $4 billion a year in aid. tea partiers, what do you feel about that? i'll bet i know the answer though...
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
I'm sorry, I forgot who much smarter you non Americans are. Stupid me! I'm sure most Americans would gladly give you the UN so please take it!
i am an american.
sorry i don't tow the brainwashed american foreign policy line/aipac policy line with blanket support for israel...those who do clearly do not want a peaceful solution to the conflict. if they did, they would read up on the conflict instead of just believing what our leaders tell us..and if they did that, common sense tells me that they may change their minds and agree with the rest of the world in condemning the illegal occupation and illegal settlement expansion..
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
dude, israel and the jews have their state and place in the world. they are not in any danger, despite the fearmongering and propaganda fed to the gullible. palestine has nothing. no bargaining rights. no state. no political power. no official global representation. gaza is an open air prison.
common sense and morality should dictate full support for recognition of a palestineian state
seriously like, if that's your logic then the native americans should be allowed to displace you and enforce their own laws as they where present in america years before the european colonisation of it.
in any case, the israeli settlers are just that -- settlers. the majority of them are immigrants born in eastern europe and south america. what gives them the right to displace palestinian natives who already have made homes there ?
what ever happened to the Freedom Floatilla?
GO ISRAEL!
WOOT
Do you support ethnic cleansing?
What's your hero Rick Perry's views on Israel? Does he also support the ongoing building of illegal racist settlements on stolen land?
Edit: Though I don't honestly expect a straight answer. Just a silly picture and a dumb, meaningless slogan indicative of someone who gets all their information about the World from the t.v.
Do you support ethnic cleansing?
What's your hero Rick Perry's views on Israel? Does he also support the ongoing building of illegal racist settlements on stolen land?
Edit: Though I don't honestly expect a straight answer. Just a silly picture and a dumb, meaningless slogan indicative of someone who gets all their information about the World from the t.v.[/quote]
Sorry, I don't watch TV and I draw my own conclusions and I don't google to back my points, but rock on if that is what floats your boat. I truly hope Obama supports your view because it will be his demise next November.
Maybe you should try backing your points. Facts are a wonderful thing. They beat empty rhetoric and bigotry everytime.
Business as usual, ten years after 9/11.
so it's o.k. to say the Indians and the Mexicans have no argument in the US then right ?
I mean we are talking about todays world right ?
Godfather.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
The Indians have rights based on treaties which are still binding.
They should also have the same basic rights as other citizens of the U.S.
Do they have a legal claim to all of the U.S? No.
just saying man if its 200 years or 2000 years it means just as much to those people as it would anybody else.
Godfather.
As far as I'm concerned, the US shouldn't be supporting either side in this conflict. The cost has been too great to everyday Americans who have suffered the wrath of angry middle easterners who have directed their hatred towards the United States. Supporting the Israeli occupation of Palestine doesn't benefit the US in any way and it does nothing to enhance human rights in an already turbulent region. It's time for the US to pull back and focus on repairing its internal problems rather than stirring the pot internationally. Perhaps if the trillions you guys spent on your international interference was focused on building the American infrastructure you wouldn't be facing the worst financial crisis in 80+ years.