US lifts sanctions from Abbas-led government
jlew24asu
Posts: 10,118
all we need now is to get rid of Hamas or they take "destruction of Israel" from their charter and Israel is willing to give up land and occupation. we have a change at peace in the region.
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration on Monday lifted its economic and political embargo against the Palestinian government, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice announced.
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The move follows the expulsion of the militant Hamas movement from the
Palestinian Authority, and is meant to strengthen Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas by resuming direct U.S. aid.
Rice said she had informed new Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad of the decision in a phone call.
"I told him the United States would resume full assistance to the Palestinian government and normal government-to-government contacts," she told reporters at the State Department. "I told the prime minister that we want to work with his government and support his efforts to enforce the rule of law and to ensure a better life for the Palestinian people."
"We intend to lift our financial restrictions on the Palestinian government, which has accepted previous agreements with
Israel and rejects the path of violence. This will enable the American people and American financial institutions to resume normal economic and commercial ties with the Palestinaian government," Rice said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070618/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_mideast
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration on Monday lifted its economic and political embargo against the Palestinian government, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice announced.
ADVERTISEMENT
The move follows the expulsion of the militant Hamas movement from the
Palestinian Authority, and is meant to strengthen Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas by resuming direct U.S. aid.
Rice said she had informed new Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad of the decision in a phone call.
"I told him the United States would resume full assistance to the Palestinian government and normal government-to-government contacts," she told reporters at the State Department. "I told the prime minister that we want to work with his government and support his efforts to enforce the rule of law and to ensure a better life for the Palestinian people."
"We intend to lift our financial restrictions on the Palestinian government, which has accepted previous agreements with
Israel and rejects the path of violence. This will enable the American people and American financial institutions to resume normal economic and commercial ties with the Palestinaian government," Rice said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070618/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_mideast
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Can't wait for the "wrong" party to get elected in Iraq so I can have another good laugh at the charge of the light brigade and their trumped up version of democracy bombed off at your doorstep.
ha, palastine elections were "legit" ? nice
regardless, you somehow are against the US backing the only palastinian organization that doesn't want war with Israel. go figure
There will never be peace in that region.
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How were the election NOT legitimate?
...
"Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also put on a brave face, saying "We still have every reason for hope and for optimism" because voter turnout was high and free from violence. She said the Palestinian people were "expressing their desire for change," because they "have endured governance that was, by all accounts, not meeting their needs.""
ref.; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/26/AR2006012601009.html
...
Does 'Legitimate' mean only when the one you want to win... actually wins?
Hail, Hail!!!
But I did want to stop by and say..... You take my life, but I'll take yours too,
You fire musket but I'll run you through.
So when you're waiting for the next attack,
You'd better stand there's no turning back.
The bugle sounds, the charge begins.
But on this battlefield no one wins.
The smell of acrid smoke and horses' breath,
As I plunge on into certain death.
Ohh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh-oh. Ohh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh-oh.
Oh yeah brother!!!! http://www.citynoise.org/upload/6508.jpg
Legit as the last two in the States? Ah yeah!
Don't bother to wave your pom-poms while your country puts sanctions and bomb countries to bring democracy just to cry like a little whiney child when your team dosen't win.
And the Jews since 1940 something. This could be a fun game!
The way I see it, there will be a part of palestine with food a basic health care and limited violence. And Gazah were none of the above applies. And the EU, US and Israel will keep it that way long enough to make their point. In the end it's always the palestine people that is suffering (well the ones in Gazah).
Israel closed it's borders with Gazah because populations are fleeing and they're are afraid (legitimately) that terrorists profit from this to enter Israel.
Every one seems to be taking the palestine population hostage to make their point, now that's what I call politics.
That's kinda the point. That if you hold free elections in a country whose populous hates Israel (and America)... then, it is only logical to believe that they will legitiamtely elect a leadership that hates israel and the West.
I don't legitimize Hamas (whom i view as a terrorist organization, just like the P.L.O and Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad). But, like the results or not... their elections WERE legal.
Hail, Hail!!!
so despite legitimate elections that the US championed, the result they desire comes to fruition anyway, despite the elections not going the way they wanted, when the vilified HAMAS government is turfed out by someone sweeter.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
Well Hamas showed their dedication to democracy when they over took all of Fatah's ministries in Gaza recently. The minute they did that, in my opinion, they forfeited their legitamacy. In a sense I'm glag they did that because now Israel can work with a more moderate Palestinians government and hopefully hash out a peace plan. I say isolate Gaza and just deal with the West Bank.
Voting for Hamas is the same as voting in the Ku Klux Klan, in my opinion. Just because people voted for them, doesn't mean they are a legitimate governing party. But, if enough people in america vote for the Ku Klux Klan and get them into government... it does not mean our electoral system is screwed up... it only points out that our electorate is.
Hail, Hail!!!
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=13084
A setback for the Bush doctrine in Gaza
by Ali Abunimah
June 17, 2007
The dramatic rout of the US and Israeli-backed Palestinian militias in Gaza by forces loyal to Hamas represents a major setback to the Bush doctrine in Palestine.
Background
Ever since Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections in the occupied territories in January 2006, elements of the leadership of the long-dominant Fatah movement, including Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his advisors have conspired with Israel, the United States and the intelligence services of several Arab states to overthrow and weaken Hamas. This support has included funneling weapons and tens of millions of dollars to unaccountable militias, particularly the "Preventive Security Force" headed by Gaza warlord Mohammad Dahlan, a close ally of Israel and the United States and the Abbas-affiliated "Presidential Guard." US Deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams -- who helped divert money to the Nicaraguan Contras in the 1980s and who was convicted of lying to Congress in the Iran-Contra scandal -- has spearheaded the effort to set up these Palestinian Contras. (This background has been extensively detailed in a number of articles published by The Electronic Intifada in recent months). Abrams is also notorious for helping to cover up massacres and atrocities committed against civilians in El Salvador by US-backed militias and death squads.
Two recent revelations underscore the extent of the conspiracy: on 7 June, Ha'aretz reported that "senior Fatah officials in the Gaza Strip have asked Israel to allow them to receive large shipments of arms and ammunition from Arab countries, including Egypt." According to the Israeli newspaper, Fatah asked Israel for "armored cars, hundreds of armor-piercing RPG rockets, thousands of hand grenades and millions of rounds of ammunition for small caliber weapons," all to be used against Hamas.
From the moment of its election victory, Hamas acted pragmatically and with the intent to integrate itself into the existing political structure. It had observed for over a year a unilateral ceasefire with Israel and had halted the suicide attacks on Israeli civilians that had made it notorious. In a leaked confidential memo written in May and published by The Guardian this week senior UN envoy Alvaro de Soto confirmed that it was under pressure from the United States that Abbas refused Hamas' initial invitation to form a "national unity government." De Soto details that Abbas advisers actively aided and abetted the Israeli-US-European Union aid cutoff and siege of the Palestinians under occupation, which led to massively increased poverty for millions of people. These advisors engaged with the United States in a "plot" to "bring about the untimely demise of the [Palestinian Authority] government led by Hamas," de Soto wrote.
Despite a bloody attempted coup against Hamas by the Dahlan-led forces in December and January, Hamas still agreed to join a "National Unity Government" with Fatah brokered by Saudi Arabia at the Mecca summit. Dahlan and Abbas' advisers were determined to sabotage this, continuing to amass weapons, and refusing to place their militias under the control of a neutral interior minister who eventually resigned in frustration.
A setback for United States and Israel
The core of US strategy in the Southwest and Central Asia, particularly Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon is to establish puppet regimes that will fight America's enemies on its behalf. This strategy seems to be failing everywhere. The Taliban are resurgent in Afghanistan. Despite its "surge" the US is no closer to putting down the resistance in Iraq and cannot even trust the Iraqi army it helped set up. The Lebanese army, which the US hopes to bolster as a counterweight to Hizballah, has performed poorly against a few hundred foreign fighters holed up in Nahr al-Bared refugee camp (although it has caused death and devastation to many innocent Palestinian refugees). Now in Gaza, the latest blow.
Israel's policy is a local version of the US strategy -- and it has also been tried and failed. For over two decades Israel relied on a proxy militia, the South Lebanon Army, to help it enforce the occupation of southern Lebanon. In 2000, as Israeli forces hastily withdrew, this militia collapsed just as quickly as Dahlan's forces and many of its members fled to Israel. Hamas is now referring to the rout of Dahlan's forces as a "second liberation of Gaza."
A consistent element of Israeli strategy has been to attempt to circumvent Palestinian resistance by trying to create quisling leaderships. Into the 1970s, Israel still saw the PLO as representing true resistance. So it set up the collaborationist "village leagues" in the West Bank as an alternative. In 1976, it allowed municipal elections in the West Bank in an effort to give this alternative leadership some legitimacy. When PLO-affiliated candidates swept the board, Israel began to assassinate the PLO mayors with car bombs or force them into exile. Once some exiled PLO leaders, most notably Yasser Arafat, became willing subcontractors of the occupation (an arrangement formalized by the Oslo Accords), a new resistance force emerged in the form of Hamas. Israeli efforts to back Dahlan and Abbas, Arafat's successor, as quisling alternatives have now backfired spectacularly.
In the wake of the Fatah collapse in Gaza, Ha'aretz reported that Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert will advise President Bush that Gaza must be isolated from the West Bank. This can be seen as an attempt to shore up Abbas whose survival Israel sees as essential to maintaining the fiction that it does not directly rule millions of disenfranchised Palestinians. A total collapse of the Palestinian Authority would expose Israel's legal obligation, as the occupying power, to provide for the welfare of the Palestinians it rules.
What now for the Palestinian under occupation?
Abbas has declared a "state of emergency" and dismissed Ismail Haniyeh the Hamas prime minister as well as the "national unity government." The "state of emergency" is merely rhetorical. Whatever control he had in Gaza is gone and Israel is in complete control of the West Bank anyway.
Haniyeh in a speech this evening carried live on Al-Jazeera rejected Abbas' "hasty" moves and alleged that they were the result of pressure from abroad. He issued 16 points, among them that the "unity government" represented the will of 96 percent of Palestinians under occupation freely expressed at the ballot box. He reaffirmed his movement's commitment to democracy and the existing political system and that Hamas would not impose changes on people's way of life. Haniyeh said the government would continue to function, would restore law and order and reaffirm Hamas' commitment to national unity and the Mecca agreement. He called on all Hamas members to observe a general amnesty assuring any captured fighters of their safety (this followed media reports of a handful of summary executions of Fatah fighters). He also emphasized that Hamas' fight was not with Fatah as a whole, but only with those elements who had been actively collaborating -- a clear allusion to Dahlan and other Abbas advisors. He portrayed Hamas' takeover as a last resort in the wake of escalating lawlessness and coup attempts by collaborators, listing many alleged crimes that had finally caused Hamas' patience to snap. Haniyeh emphasized the unity of Gaza and the West Bank as "inseparable parts of the Palestinian nation," and he repeated a call for the captors of BBC correspondent Alan Johnston to free him immediately.
The contrast between Abbas' action and the Hamas response is striking. Abbas, perhaps pushed by the same coterie of advisors, seems to be escalating the confrontation and doing so when there is no reason to believe he can prevail. Hamas, while standing firm and from a position of strength, spoke in a language of conciliation, emphasizing time and again that Hamas has a problem with only a small group within Fatah, not its rank and file. Abbas, Dahlan and their backers must be surveying a sobering scene -- they may be tempted to try to take on Hamas in the West Bank, but the scale of their defeat in Gaza would have to give them pause.
Both leaderships are hemmed in. Abbas appears to be entirely dependent on foreign and Israeli support and unable to take decisions independent of a corrupt, self-serving clique. Hamas, whatever intentions it has is likely to find itself under an even tighter siege in Gaza.
Abbas, backed by Israel and the US, has called for a multinational force in Gaza. Hamas has rejected this, saying it would be viewed as an "occupying force." Indeed, they have reason to be suspicious: for decades Israel and the US blocked calls for an international protection force for Palestinians. The multinational force, Hamas fears, would not be there to protect Palestinians from their Israeli occupiers, but to perform the proxy role of protecting Israel's interests that Dahlan's forces are no longer able to carry out and to counter the resistance -- just as the multinational force was supposed to do in Lebanon after the July 2006 war.
Wise leaders in Israel and the United States would recognize that Hamas is not a passing phenomenon, and that they can never create puppet leaders who will be able to compete against a popular resistance movement. But there are no signs of wisdom: the US has now asked Israel to "loosen its grip" in the West Bank to try to give Abbas a boost. Although the Bush doctrine has suffered a blow, the Palestinian people have not won any great victory. The sordid game at their expense continues.
Ali Abunimah is cofounder of the online publication The Electronic Intifada and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse.
but isnt that what democracy is all about. the people being heard. the people voting for whoever the hell they want?
but then again we could get into a big ol' debate about preferential voting systems. which is hardly democratic imo, but still considered legitimate.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
I can see the euphoria in Byrnie's eyes at the very sight of a statement like that.
Don't forget... I voted for the US-backed deaths... And ONLY the US-backed deaths!
"What I lack in decorum, I make up for with an absence of tact."
Camden 5-28-06
Washington, D.C. 6-22-08
Exactly. The topic we are addressing is whether or not the Gaza Elections were legitimate. I say they were. Sure, it would have been nice if they didn't elect a group like Hamas (which I compare to the K.K.K. only in the sense that both are extremist groups that use violence to fulfill their specific, religious based political agendas)... but, if that's what the people of Gaza want... that's what they should get. That is Democracy at work. We cannot just claim their election as fraudulent, just because the guy we wanted didn't win.
And we (the United States) should take note that maybe it isn't such a great deal to 'Spread Democracy' to a region where the greater majority of the population hate us and Israel. The last thing that would be 'Good for America'? Democracy in Pakistan.
...
And if the the majority of Americans voted for the K.K.K. and they got elected to power here... I would not fault our Democratic process... or the K.K.K... I would place full responsibility on the people in the ballot poll booths.
Hail, Hail!!!
Because a few of us can realize that the Jews are used to whip up hatred over in the middle east as the middle east is used to whip up hatred in America. Basic fact that nobody can deny. Pretty sad day when you need to use another human being to get your country to rally around suicide bombings or carpet bombings, eh!
Hope you doing okay B!
Edit: And what Hammas has done in the past week(s) only reminds me of a wild west scene where somebody wants to be top dog and when you have armed factions, we know how it is going to be settled. One would have to take a wild stab that if you are oppressed in your own eyes, it won't take too much convincing that if the said government isn't going to cave into the oppressor, that they are going to win an open election.
eh ?
ok cool. its Israel's fault hamas used force to destroy its opposition.
eh.
You should try reading more than just the title of the above article. You may learn something.
I agree that that the Palestinians have had a shitty hand delt to them, but Hamas was not going to improve their situation by any means. What Israel needs to do know is stop being so fucking stubborn and work with Fatah in the West Bank. If attacks do start occuring in the West Bank because of Hamas or Hamad sympathizers israel needs to help Fatah deal with them instead of just taking matters into their own hands. If they are able to do this the situation for Palestinians in the west Bank will improve dramatically and a lasting peace and an independent Palestine can be achieved there.
Gaza is another story, but hopefully if what I mentioned occurs in the West Bank the people of Gaza may come to realize that Hamas will not achieve those ends but only bring about more death and destruction. As much as Israel has fucked the Palestinians, Hamas has equally fucked them as well by promoting hate and violence and making sure that a peace agreement will never be reached.
It's truly sad because the Palestinians people have be screwed over by Isreal and their own leadership. Fatah was too weak and inept to ever handle Hamas and curb the terrorism threat that they posed. Israel was too fucking hard headeed to realize this and offer Fatah some aid in doing so and would usually take matter into their own hands causing more needless death and the hands of heavy handed military attacks on Palestinians. Hamas never really had the interest of the Palestinian people at heart. they only had their hate filled agenda and used the Palestinian people and their situation to promote that agenda at any cost.
I believe that Abbas and this new government offers the best chance for the Palestinian people, but Israel needs to soften it's stance a bit in order for this to work.
Lastly I'm doing fine, thank you. It was great to finally meet you and Allison, both of them.
L'anglais est ma première langue?
Estaba pensando en algun tipo de demostracion de afecto para la banda... algo asi como una ENORME bandera q diga thank you... o no se, algo, ahora no puedo ni pensar pero si tienen alguna idea este es el lugar para decidir ese tipo de cosas... asi no seguimos con los threads sueltos x ahi...
x cierto, yo soy de cordoba, estamos armando una banda d gente para salir todos en un colectivo... tengo como conseguir buen precio si nos ponemos todos de acuerdo y sacamos los boletos juntos...
Yo no sabia que tu eres de Cordoba.
Welcome to 'Palestine'
by Robert Fisk
June 18, 2007
How troublesome the Muslims of the Middle East are. First, we demand that the Palestinians embrace democracy and then they elect the wrong party - Hamas - and then Hamas wins a mini-civil war and presides over the Gaza Strip. And we Westerners still want to negotiate with the discredited President, Mahmoud Abbas. Today "Palestine" - and let's keep those quotation marks in place - has two prime ministers. Welcome to the Middle East.
Who can we negotiate with? To whom do we talk? Well of course, we should have talked to Hamas months ago. But we didn't like the democratically elected government of the Palestinian people. They were supposed to have voted for Fatah and its corrupt leadership. But they voted for Hamas, which declines to recognise Israel or abide by the totally discredited Oslo agreement.
No one asked - on our side - which particular Israel Hamas was supposed to recognise. The Israel of 1948? The Israel of the post-1967 borders? The Israel which builds - and goes on building - vast settlements for Jews and Jews only on Arab land, gobbling up even more of the 22 per cent of "Palestine" still left to negotiate over ?
And so today, we are supposed to talk to our faithful policeman, Mr Abbas, the "moderate" (as the BBC, CNN and Fox News refer to him) Palestinian leader, a man who wrote a 600-page book about Oslo without once mentioning the word "occupation", who always referred to Israeli "redeployment" rather than "withdrawal", a "leader" we can trust because he wears a tie and goes to the White House and says all the right things. The Palestinians didn't vote for Hamas because they wanted an Islamic republic - which is how Hamas's bloody victory will be represented - but because they were tired of the corruption of Mr Abbas's Fatah and the rotten nature of the "Palestinian Authority".
I recall years ago being summoned to the home of a PA official whose walls had just been punctured by an Israeli tank shell. All true. But what struck me were the gold-plated taps in his bathroom. Those taps - or variations of them - were what cost Fatah its election. Palestinians wanted an end to corruption - the cancer of the Arab world - and so they voted for Hamas and thus we, the all-wise, all-good West, decided to sanction them and starve them and bully them for exercising their free vote. Maybe we should offer "Palestine" EU membership if it would be gracious enough to vote for the right people?
All over the Middle East, it is the same. We support Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan, even though he keeps warlords and drug barons in his government (and, by the way, we really are sorry about all those innocent Afghan civilians we are killing in our "war on terror" in the wastelands of Helmand province).
We love Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, whose torturers have not yet finished with the Muslim Brotherhood politicians recently arrested outside Cairo, whose presidency received the warm support of Mrs - yes Mrs - George W Bush - and whose succession will almost certainly pass to his son, Gamal.
We adore Muammar Gaddafi, the crazed dictator of Libya whose werewolves have murdered his opponents abroad, whose plot to murder King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia preceded Tony Blair's recent visit to Tripoli - Colonel Gaddafi, it should be remembered, was called a "statesman" by Jack Straw for abandoning his non- existent nuclear ambitions - and whose "democracy" is perfectly acceptable to us because he is on our side in the "war on terror".
Yes, and we love King Abdullah's unconstitutional monarchy in Jordan, and all the princes and emirs of the Gulf, especially those who are paid such vast bribes by our arms companies that even Scotland Yard has to close down its investigations on the orders of our prime minister - and yes, I can indeed see why he doesn't like The Independent's coverage of what he quaintly calls "the Middle East". If only the Arabs - and the Iranians - would support our kings and shahs and princes whose sons and daughters are educated at Oxford and Harvard, how much easier the "Middle East" would be to control.
For that is what it is about - control - and that is why we hold out, and withdraw, favours from their leaders. Now Gaza belongs to Hamas, what will our own elected leaders do? Will our pontificators in the EU, the UN, Washington and Moscow now have to talk to these wretched, ungrateful people (fear not, for they will not be able to shake hands) or will they have to acknowledge the West Bank version of Palestine (Abbas, the safe pair of hands) while ignoring the elected, militarily successful Hamas in Gaza?
It's easy, of course, to call down a curse on both their houses. But that's what we say about the whole Middle East. If only Bashar al-Assad wasn't President of Syria (heaven knows what the alternative would be) or if the cracked President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad wasn't in control of Iran (even if he doesn't actually know one end of a nuclear missile from the other).
If only Lebanon was a home-grown democracy like our own little back-lawn countries - Belgium, for example, or Luxembourg. But no, those pesky Middle Easterners vote for the wrong people, support the wrong people, love the wrong people, don't behave like us civilised Westerners.
So what will we do? Support the reoccupation of Gaza perhaps? Certainly we will not criticise Israel. And we shall go on giving our affection to the kings and princes and unlovely presidents of the Middle East until the whole place blows up in our faces and then we shall say - as we are already saying of the Iraqis - that they don't deserve our sacrifice and our love.
How do we deal with a coup d'état by an elected government?