Harder Line on Palestinians Sought

BY FARAH STOCKMAN, GLOBE STAFF
The Boston Globe
February 05, 2006 Sunday
THIRD EDITION
Section: NATIONAL/FOREIGN; Pg. A6

WASHINGTON At least four efforts to toughen the US stance toward Palestinians following the Hamas election victory are gaining momentum in Congress. If passed, the measures would sharply curtail the power of the State Department and the White House to shape American policy toward the Palestinians.

The bills go well beyond the "review" of aid programs that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced after the militant Islamic group's landslide on Jan. 25. One bill, put forward by Representative Anthony Weiner, a New York Democrat, would cut off all humanitarian funding to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank through the US Agency for International Development. That aid totaled $225 million last year.

Another bill, sponsored by Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican, would deny US visas to representatives of the Palestinian Authority, including President Mahmoud Abbas, who supports peace talks with Israel. Under the measure, President Bush would have to sign a special waiver for Abbas to visit Washington.

The moves on Capitol Hill could complicate the already difficult task of deciding whether to withhold financial assistance from Palestinians as Hamas, which the United States and Europe consider a terrorist organization, takes over control of the government in the coming months.

Congress already prohibits direct US aid to the Palestinian Authority without a special presidential waiver. Last year, after Abbas was elected, Bush signed such a waiver to give $50 million in direct funding for housing construction and $88 million more to the UN agency that supports Palestinian refugees.

With Hamas in power, US officials say, Bush will not sign another waiver. But US lawmakers are seeking to limit the president's power to do so anyway.

The Bush administration has announced it is reviewing all aid programs to ensure that support will not benefit Hamas. US and European Union officials are pressuring Hamas to renounce violence and recognize Israel by threatening to withhold aid to the Palestinian Authority, which is heavily dependent on foreign assistance.

But other officials in the Middle East warn that such pressure punishes moderate Palestinian politicians alongside Hamas. Completely eliminating aid could also leave extremist groups, and perhaps countries such as Iran and Syria, as the only sources of aid in the poverty-stricken Palestinian territories.

"We don't want to see others who are not supportive of the peace process filling that vacuum," Jordan's foreign minister, Abdulilah al-Khatib, told reporters in Washington on Thursday.

James Prince, president of the Democracy Council, a nonprofit group that conducted an anticorruption program for the Palestinian Authority from 1999 to 2004, said that "a wholesale cutoff would be disastrous and would be the detriment to the very people we are trying to help."

Prince calls the bills in Congress "well intentioned" but said that some measures such as the complete cutoff of humanitarian aid could lead to chaos or even civil war among Palestinian factions. "Assistance programs need to have some sort of external controls to make sure Hamas does not benefit," he said. "There are ways to do it to support the liberal democrats against the terrorists."

Palestinians say the harsh measures would send the message that they are being collectively punished for the results of a democratic election that the United States pushed them to hold.

"They asked us to have democracy, and we did," said Ahmed Zorba, 23, a clothing salesman in Nablus, the West Bank's largest city. "This means they are two-faced."

Hamas has rejected as "blackmail" international demands that it recognize Israel. Its leaders have already appealed to Muslim governments and private organizations from around the world to keep the Palestinian Authority afloat.

Yasser Mansour, a Hamas spokesman in Nablus, said the movement could meet Palestinians' needs without US or European support.

"We have other resources," he said in a recent interview. Asked whether Hamas would accept massive funding from Iran, he said, "We don't speak about this now."

Serious questions remain about whether a Hamas-led government would be able to raise enough to fund the Palestinian Authority's 137,000 employees if international funding dries up.

Last year, the authority, the largest employer in Gaza and the West Bank, spent about $150 million per month, $80 million of which went to salaries, according to financial reports posted on the Palestinian Ministry of Finance website. About $60 million per month of those costs was covered by customs and VAT revenues collected by Israel. The remainder was covered by bank loans and aid from the EU and Arab countries.

But this week, Palestinian officials delayed the payment of salaries after Israel refused to turn over its portion of the funding. In recent months, the EU also halted some of its funding because Palestinians failed to keep the cost of salaries in check. Meanwhile, banks have stopped lending to the authority, which is already crippled by debt.

The possibility that the authority could collapse poses a "real dilemma" to the United States, said Ed Abington, a longtime Washington-based consultant to the Palestinian Authority.

"What happens if you have no particular government in the West Bank?" Abington asked. "Where are we in five years?Maybe there will be conditions where you are trying to move back to the peace process but there is no one on the Palestinian side to talk to."

Among the other bills in Congress is one sponsored by Representative Vito Fossella, a New York Republican, which would prevent the president from signing a waiver for direct aid to the Palestinians unless he first removes Hamas from the terrorism list.

Another bill, sponsored by Senator Rick Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican, would prevent a president from signing an aid waiver unless he can certify that the Palestinian Authority has met seven conditions, including amending Hamas's charter to delete statements hostile to Israel.

The bill pushed by Ros-Lehtinen, a contender for the powerful position of chair of the House International Relations Committee, goes even further. In addition to preventing Palestinian Authority officials from traveling freely to the United States, it also would prevent the authority from having a diplomatic presence in Washington and restrict the travel of Palestinian representatives at the UN.

In the West Bank, the flurry of activity in Washington did not faze Palestinians who already were disillusioned over the inability of the previous government led by the defeated Fatah movement to deliver a real change in their lives. "No Palestinian will die of starvation," said Ihad Abu Salhiyeh, 36, a stockbroker in a crowded brokerage office. "Even if America and Europe cut us off, Palestinians will manage."

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