Bush signs law banning aid to Hamas government

[Scurrilous]

Aid contingent upon recognizing Israel, making 'demonstrable progress' at purging political system of ties to terror, stopping incitement

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3343245,00.html

<snip>

"President Bush on Thursday signed into law legislation restricting aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority until it recognizes Israel's right to exist, makes financial reforms and takes other steps.

The US House of Representatives approved the bill in May, by a majority of 361 to 37, with 9 abstentions.

The objective of the bill is to dry the Hamas government of funds, thus leading to a breakdown of the government or a change in its stance.

"This legislation reflects our continued concern over the failure of the current government to renounce violence and terror, recognize Israel and respect its previous agreements and obligations," a White House official said."

[ShortnFiery]

1. All of the King's Horses and All the King's men will NOT

get the Palestinians to vote for Abbas (or Fatah) again! :P

Wake-up and recognize "The Palestinian Peoples' Choice" or is DEMOCRACY only defined in who the governments of USA and Israel want for the Palestinian People?

Or do you honestly think, King George, that the Palestinian People can't recognize when they are being punked?

[cali]

2. Actually, polls indicate that Hamas and Fatah are running

neck and neck.

[msmcghee]

3. Actually this legislation . .

. . does recognize "The Palestinian Peoples' Choice" - as you recommend.

It also is an expression of another people's choice. Ours.

[ShortnFiery]

4. Don't include me. n/t

[Lurking Dem]

5. So the U.S.

should decide to no longer give $$ to Israel but has no right to decide not to give $$ to a Hamas-led government in Palestine?

[ShortnFiery]

6. That's the ticket ...

You see, if we don't like "DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED" Hamas members, the USA thinks that if they withhold monies to them, the Palestinian People will submit and elect cronies that will always side with the governments of the USA and Israel.

Perhaps the forgoing strategy will work and the Palestinian people will vote overwhelmingly for Fatah representatives. Although I also hope and pray that Hamas recognizes the State of Israel's right to exist, I also hope that the Palestinians "stand their ground" and not allow their OCCUPIERS to dictate who leads the Palestinian government.

Call me sentimental and idealistic but NO-ONE should tamper with Democratic Elections. By withholding monies, that's exactly what we are attempting to do, manipulate the Abbas led early election process.

No, IMO, ATT the USA is NOT a fair peace broker - that message is transparent to the World Community as well as the Palestinian People.

[cali]

7. You do realize,

don't you, that it is not only the U.S. witholding funds? True of The EU as well, and many other nations. Your suggestion that countries don't have the right to select who they'll supply aid to, is ridiculous. That said, I'd like to see aid to Israel withdrawn as well.

[breakaleg]

8. I also think the US shouldn't withhold aid from the Palestinians.

Of course the US can decide who it gives aid to. But what they are doing is trying to force the people to vote in someone they like, by withholding that aid.

Like it or not, Hamas was elected. It's insane for the US to say they want democratic elections and then say that since they don't like the winner, they are going to make all of the people suffer.

[cali]

11. I don't see it that way.

Are you in favor of the U.S. witholding aid from Israel, due to their policies? Should the U.S. give aid, for example, to a country that elects democratically elects a government that then procedes to commit gross human rights violations against its population? Democractic elections are only the beginning of democracy, not the end all and be all. All countries use aid to influence the recipient.

[breakaleg]

12. Yes, I think the US can withhold aid due to countried policies.

In this case, they wanted democratic elections and they got them. Only when they didn't like the winner did they cut them off. Added to that you have a humanitarian crisis in Gaza right now where people are going without basic necessities. It seems to me that the US is helping Israel to try to starve the Palestinians.

on edit: I think the US has to stop trying to dictate policy and government in other countries. It's been a disaster and they should realize that and butt out.

[Violet_Crumble]

14. The only problem with that is...

That by withholding all aid to the Palestinians, Palestinian civilians suffer and die, which makes the US just as bad as Hamas and Israel, imo. While all countries use aid to influence the recipient, it's the height of hypocrisy for the US to withhold aid from the Palestinians while still giving aid to Israel - a country that doesn't even need foreign aid....

[cali]

15. The U.S.

and the EU, who by the way, are also witholding aid are as free to withold aid from any country as the Palestinians (or any other nation or would be nation) are to elect whom they choose. And there are certainly enough countries who have enough money to prevent needless suffering and death. My problem isn't with the decision to withold aid, but with the efforts to disrupt aid from countries who wish to provide it. And as I said up thread, I'm opposed to the aid we give Israel. .

[ShortnFiery]

9. Yes, I realize all of the above as MANIPULATION ...

With time, I believe that these actions will come back to figuratively bite us in the ass. ;)

In other words, just because seemingly EVERYONE is doing it, does not make it right OR the true will of the people of these nations doing the financial manipulation.

Time will tell. :shrug:

[The Magistrate]

13. What You Are Essentially Urging Here, Ma'am

Is a claim both that actions should not have consequences, and that the actions of Arab Paestinians should not be taken seriously.

Hamas won a parliamentary majority, albeit without a majority of the vote, in a free and fair election: all well and good. But the policies of Hamas are contrary to the interests of several other states, and while the Arab Palestinians have every right to vote a Hamas government in, these states have every right act against that government, and are certainly under no obligation to support it financially. The rejectionist stance of Hamas regarding Israel is effectively a statement war will continue, and no peace be made on any terms save Arab Palestinian victory, so long as Hamas has anything to say about it. Hamas has every right to maintain this, but other interested parties not only have every right to take this declaration of hostile intent seriously, they would be wisest to take it seriously, Hamas having given down the years sufficient practical demonstration they are in dead earnest in the matter.

A people cannot vote in the war party, Ma'am, and expect there to be no hostile reaction from the states that party conceives itself to be at war against, or even from states that simply prefer an orderly course of events in the area. Arab Palestine gets no pass on this: the choices of that people do have consequences, and the platforms of its governing party must be taken seriously by others.

[ShortnFiery]

16. Again, we disagree

No matter how eloquent you choose to submit your argument, the USA and Israel are using the "mean green" to MANIPULATE elections. We have used MANIPULATION with disastrous results since WWII (Coup in Iran, Chili, Afghanistan and pumping up Saddam in Iraq during the early 80s). Now we are trying to be "less thuggish" by COVERTLY using our power ($$$) to manipulate the peoples' vote BEFORE instead of supporting a coup AFTER.

Although I am not blessed with your verbal eloquence, it doesn't make our, IMO, tampering with the primal forces of nature (manipulating the masses through pay-offs) any less DANGEROUS nor MANIPULATIVE. Will we discover twenty years from now that those whom we are financially propping up are no more *grateful* as the Taliban in Afghanistan? In other words, financial support to foreign countries only reaps rewards when it is given to the disenfranchised and poor WITHOUT any obvious strings.

Although their resistance tactics are BLOODY and WRONG as much, or perhaps more than, Israel's state sponsored collective punishments (suicide Bombings, reprisals, etc.), we can NOT deny that the monies that home grown Hamas and Hesbola leaders set aside is not a "significant chunk of change" along with volunteer support that often truly benefits individual families and public works programs. That way they work from "the inside out" to obtain the people's loyalties.

We (USA and Israel) would be better served by use of our $ in Palestine and Lebanon IF we choose to use it DIRECTLY on those who need it most, i.e., the sick, poor and disenfranchised people. However, that would require that we truly cared about their fates.

Sure we can manipulate an election or two, but when day to day life does not improve for the abject poor, they will turn to the militant groups that give them water, food and money for the rent, i.e., see Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

Our selfish goals are transparent and although the Peoples of occupied Palestine and Lebanon are poor, they are not stupid. We only care about our PERSONAL welfare, not that of "the other." :thumbsdown:

[Lurking Dem]

18. .

We (USA and Israel) would be better served by use of our $ in Palestine and Lebanon IF we choose to use it DIRECTLY on those who need it most, i.e., the sick, poor and disenfranchised people. However, that would require that we truly cared about their fates.

Yet when Israel tried to give Gazan hospitals needed equipment and medicine they said, "No, thanks, we would rather have cash."

Your insinuation that neither Israelis nor Americans care is disgusting.

[ShortnFiery]

20. "Your insinuation that neither Israelis nor Americans care is disgusting."

But pausable. ;) More important it is EXACTLY what the poverty stricken Palestinians believe each and every day. Do some public works for them instead of manipulating elections and dropping bombs. Then, just perhaps, the hearts and minds of the Palestinian people will be open to the opinions of the USA and Israel. :shrug:

[The Magistrate]

26. What Is There To Disagree With, Ma'am?

You seem to prefer a loaded phrasing; my preference is for technical accuracy.

You do not address at all the basis of my comments, which is that people cannot expect to act without certain consequences following in train. Elect the government you want, fine: but no one else is required to like that government, approve of it, accept it, applaud it, finance it, or show anything but utter hostility and emnity towards it, if that is their desire or they conceive it to be in their interests. That it was freely elected makes no difference at all to this, it only means that those who voted for it have only themselves to thank for any consequences they find visited upon them, and cannot blame an aristocracy or oligarchy or some other dictatorial elite that made the decision for them.

That Hamas gained much of its popularity through the serving the people, and that its militants enjoy the name of honest men where money is involved, no competent observer of the scene will deny: indeed, a good portion of the vote for Hamas was a protest vote against Fatah corruption. But none of this alters in the slightest the fact that the rejectionist stance of Hamas is an embrace of war without end, and that this makes its dominance of the Palestine Authority government a disaster of the highest order for the people of Arab Palestine. Commitment to the idea people should rule themselves does not require belief that people will always do this wisely and well. You will doubtless have encountered in your life persons who resolutely act with great foolishness against their own best interests, and what can be observed in individuals can be counted on to occur in groups of individuals as well.

Your suggestion that monies and assistance in kind be given directly to Arab Palestinians in need is a good one. To some degree the United Nations does this already. But programs like this are difficult to press in conflict situations, where irregular bodies of armed men dominate the scene. The aid must, in such circumstances, be protected from seizure by them, to use for their own purposes, and this can be achieved only by armed force or substantial bribes. Do not imagine for a moment that the militants of Hamas would not regard a program like this as serious competition that threatened their own power base as the providers of people's needs, and do whatever was in their power to wreck it, particularly if it was associated with the United States or Israel. In the early days of the occupation in Gaza, men who took work in Israel to feed their families were routinely shot as collaborators, and people accepting direct aid from the U.S. or Israel could expect a similar fate today. Eventually, as regards work, the course of the militants proved too widely unpopular to sustain, and the same might result were your suggestion tried, in time, but the initial stages of it would likely be bone-chilling. Romanticism about the benevolence of revolutionary militants is sadly mis-placed: they invariably are hard men with a dream, resolved to whack the world into a shape congruent with it, and with no more concern for what must be carved off in that endeavor than a carpenter has for shavings and saw-dust.

[msmcghee]

10. All we are doing is refusing to provide aid . .

. . to a government that refuses to recognize the state of Israel and has pledged to destroy Jewish presence in the ME by violent means.

One could better make the case that aid for that government would just be promoting endless war and conflict in the region.

We're not "tampering with democratic elections". The Palestinians are free to elect who they wish. We are doing what we can to promote long term peace in the region by not supporting terrorists that happened to get themselves elected.

One of the few sensible acts of this administration. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[IndianaGreen]

17. As we saw in Venezuela, we only approve of democracy when we

get our puppets elected.

How is this helping Israel or America? Bush has done significant damage to our country, and has destabilized the Middle East in ways that boggle the mind.

Bush is the best friend that Islamic radicalism has!

[ShortnFiery]

19. Then it's time for the USA and Israel to renounce their State Sponsored

Terrorist tactics. We also sin and kill innocents. However, because we're wealthy our means are much more palatable because it's justified as governmental and LEGAL. It's only legal because we are the biggest bully in the world community.

When the blow back cometh may God have mercy on our corrupt souls.

Dead is dead, whether it be from a suicide bomber OR innocent civilian blown into bits by our half ton *smart bombs.* "Oh but our INTENT?" Bullshit, dead is dead and God will hold US, the people of these rationalizing "bully" countries accountable.

The saying is "God Bless the Peacemakers" :grouphug:

NOT "God bless the conniving Manipulators! :(

Make no mistake, these policy objectives are only for OUR welfare (People of the USA and Israel). Our present governmental foreign policy does not give a damn about the poor and disenfranchised Palestinians "quality of life." ... and it shows. :thumbsdown:

[everythingsxen]

21. So in your opinion then

It is better to democratically elect a genocidal terrorist organization which has repeatedly said that it wants to wipe out the Jews, than for an outside agency to manipulate that country and get leaders elected who are willing to work for peace.

The saying is "God Bless the Peacemakers"

NOT "God bless the conniving Manipulators!

How is peace made then, exactly, when one side in a conflict says that the other side secretly runs the entire world and swears that they will drive them into the sea?

[ShortnFiery]

22. No, "genocidal terrorist organization" is your definition ...

To the people's relatives who were slaughtered in Haditha, Iraq, the USA Soldiers qualify for that term also.

My point: There's no lack of atrocities on either side of warring factions. However, as I age and truly consider the plight these factions, there is but one conclusion: No ONE side can validly claim the moral high ground.

It's time for reconciliation and good will toward all peoples. It won't happen, but it's time. :shrug:

[everythingsxen]

23. That is not an answer to the question I asked

I asked if your position was that a democratically elected terror organization dedicated to genocide is preferable to outside manipulation resulting in peace.

And to be technical, the US troops couldn't be considered 'genocidal' as there is no clear pattern of extermination that can be shown. Hamas on the other hand routinely talks about wiping out the Jewish people.

[ShortnFiery]

24. That's because, IMO, your question is invalid. n/t

[everythingsxen]

25. Why is it invalid?

True or False: The Hamas Organization is anti-Semitic