Document details 'US' plan to sink Hamas

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Washington moved quickly to reassure its ally. The plan merely promoted "suggestions and ideas that we have circulated", a State Department spokesman said. "It's not any kind of formal agreement nor is it something that is being enforced on anybody." Four days later, a US Embassy official in Tel Aviv said it was not a "take it or leave it" document, but "an informal draft" of "suggestions" that could "help facilitate discussion, engagement and action".

In the wake of the Majd incident and the publication of the "Benchmarks" document in Haaretz, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice abruptly canceled her trip to Israel, citing "political turmoil" in the Israeli government. In truth, the real turmoil is in Washington, where successive attempts to jump-start a peace process have in effect been short-circuited by Rice's diplomatic fecklessness ("We just don't think she has the president's mandate," an Israeli official notes), or by the White House's willful disregard of Rice's efforts to show America's allies that the US will move to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"Condi is just not in charge of your Middle East policy," one Israeli official commented. "Every time she turns around, Elliott Abrams is slapping her down. It's embarrassing." The embarrassment has now become public.

In a breakfast meeting at the White House last Thursday, Abrams told a group of Jewish Republicans that they should not put too much stock in efforts to pressure Israel to reach an agreement with the Palestinians. "He said that pressure on Israel was all for show," a congressional staffer familiar with the meeting said, "and that it was being done just to satisfy the Europeans and Arabs.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IE16Ak04.html

[dave_p]

1. GOP pressure created Hamas's power

Let's not forget that until 2003 the Palestinian president (then Arafat) ran the show.

It was Israel, the US and the EU that forced Arafat to cede power to his legislature through a new post of prime minister accountable to legislators.

Then what happened? Arafat died, his PLO prime minister became president, and Palestinians tired of PLO cave-ins voted in a Hamas-dominated legislature now empowered through western pressure.

Foreign interference created this mess. Foreign interference aimed at making things easier for Israel won't resolve it.

The way to sink Hamas is to offer the PLO a meaningful start toward a just settlement of legitimate Palestinian demands. That could have been done before any of this happened.

Instead, US policy will once again contribute to Palestinian conflict and tar secular Palestinian nationalists with the taint of collaboration. And Hamas will emerge strengthened.

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3. I was more interested in the apparent fact that Condi is being thrown under the bus. nt