Radio France – Outside Military Support for Palestinian Factionalism – Full Interview
RFI: The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, signed a decree in the early hours this Sunday a decree creating a new emergency Palestinian government. The new cabinet which will assume power within hours is composed of ten ministers, none of which are members of the Islamist group Hamas, rival of president Abbas. Nevertheless, we are informed that neither will they be officially recognized as Fatah party members of the president.
The Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert said that his government would recognize a Palestinian government that did not include ministers from Hamas. Olmert told journalists that the new government would represent a new opportunity for peace, and that he is willing to work with it. The statement from Olmert came after signs of western support for Abbas, who has been confronting Hamas in violent conflicts within the Palestinian territories. Washington announced on Saturday that it would lift a financial embargo over Palestinian territories established 15 months ago after the electoral triumph of Hamas, after the new government is in place. The “quartet” member countries, composed of the US, EU, UN, and Russia showed signs of support for the decision of Abbas to dissolve the Palestinian government and declare a state of emergency. Europe could adopt the same position as Washington, and reestablish support for the Palestinian government, allowing funding to enter Gaza where Hamas won military engagements during this week. According to research director of the IRmep, this is the result of outside military support for the Fatah party under Abbas:
Grant Smith: Before, Israel and the US unilaterally decided that they could no longer live with Fatah and its leader (Yassir Arafat). Now, they’ve decided that Fatah is the salvation of Israel. We can see that after a low intensity conflict, with the Bush administration helping Fatah elements with arms and money, they’ve been able to achieve a rather minor objective, something that would have been easily accomplished in 2005, that is actually supporting Fatah. What would have been even better would be finding a way at that time to live with Hamas within a productive role in the coalition government. We need to remember that the Palestinian government was formed as a result of elections the entire world perceived as legitimate, and representative of Palestinian aspirations.
Now, Israel and the Bush administration have decided that they only want to work with one faction, whether the resulting government is considered to be legally constituted and legitimate or not, and they’ve chosen Fatah as the new strategy within the Israeli occupied territories.
The aid issue might seem like great news to some, and it certainly is circulating in the mainstream news outlets from Washington to Tel Aviv. But the fact of the matter is that the initial money being released are tax and customs fees that belong to the Palestinian people, more than $600 million, which the Palestinians desperately needed for social and other purposes, but were being deprived of by Israel in partnership and with full support of the Bush administration.
Full Broadcast (MP3) in Spanish