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U.S. Congress Blocks Humanitarian, Security Aid to Palestinians

Jim Lobe*

WASHINGTON, Oct 7 2011 (IPS) - Eager to demonstrate their fidelity to Israel and make good on threats to punish Palestinians for seeking statehood status from the United Nations, U.S. lawmakers are blocking the disbursement of tens of millions of dollars in humanitarian and security assistance for the occupied territories.

The administration of President Barack Obama is holding “intensive consultations” with Congress to free up the aid which, it argues, is essential to keep the Palestine Authority (PA) afloat and hopes for its favoured “two-state solution” alive.

“We feel that U.S. support for Palestinian institution-building is a vital piece of what we’re trying to do here. We’re trying to prepare the ground for a successful and stable peace,” said State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland earlier this week.

“This money goes to establishing and strengthening the institutions of a future Palestinian state, building a more democratic and stable and secure region,” she added. “We think it is money that is not only in the interest of the Palestinians; it’s in U.S. interests and it’s also in (the) Israeli interest, and we would like to see it go forward.”

In addition to blocking this year’s aid disbursements, lawmakers are also threatening to cut all aid to the PA next year.

While the Senate version of the 2012 foreign aid bill would require an aid cut-off if the Palestinians succeed in their statehood bid, which is currently pending in the U.N. Security Council, the House version would deny all assistance “until the Secretary of State certifies that the Palestinian Authority is not attempting to seek recognition at the United Nations of a Palestinian state.”

Lawmakers are also threatening to halt U.S. contributions to any U.N. agency that recognises Palestine as a state. Indeed, a decision by UNESCO’s executive board Wednesday to place Palestinian membership on the agenda of the Paris-based agency’s annual general conference later this month drew a harsh warning from the powerful Republican chairwoman of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee.

“Making a move in another U.N. agency will not only jeopardise our relationship with the Palestinians, it will jeopardise our contributions to the United Nations,” declared Texas Rep. Kay Granger after UNESCO’s executive board voted 40-4 to upgrade the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s (PLO) status from observer to member.

The U.S., which contributes some 22 percent UNESCO’s budget, was joined by Germany, Latvia, and Romania in opposing the resolution, while 14 mainly European countries abstained.

Granger point out that already existing legislation requires a cut- off in U.S. contributions to U.N. agencies that grant “full membership as a state to any organization or group that does not have the internationally recognized attributes of statehood,” such as a defined territory.

Her warning was echoed by the Republican chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, which shares jurisdiction over foreign aid issues with Granger’s subcommittee.

“Any decision to upgrade the Palestinian mission’s status by UNESCO or any other U.N. entity will lead to a cut-off of U.S. funds to that entity,” she said.

Eager to show that they will not be outdone in their devotion to Israel by Republicans, Democrats have issued similar threats.

Several key Democrats on Granger’s subcommittee joined her and her Republican colleagues in signing a letter to UNESCO’s executive director Irina Bokova this week, warning that Congress would indeed halt Washington’s contribution to her agency and appealing for her to “do everything in your power” to prevent the Palestinian application from coming before the general conference.

Over the last several years, Washington has provided a yearly average of about 600 million dollars in assistance to the Palestinians in the form of direct budgetary support for the PA, humanitarian and development aid, and security assistance.

Of the roughly 550 million dollars that was appropriated for 2011, 200 million dollars in budgetary support for the PA has already been spent, according to a recent tally by Americans for Peace Now (APN).

Granger and Ros-Lehtinen, however, have placed holds on 192 million dollars in funding by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for U.S. humanitarian programmes in the West Bank and Gaza. Ironically, none of those funds are channeled through the PA; all of the projects it supports are carried out by non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

“The fact that Congress is blocking the 192 million dollars in USAID funding is quite important, not because it indicates that Congress is trying to squeeze the PA…, but because it discloses a lot about the current atmosphere on (Capitol) Hill,” according to a memo by APN legislative director Lara Friedman.

“The narrative that says that ‘the-Palestinians’-decision-to-go-to- the-UN-is-a-form-of-diplomatic-terrorism-that-cannot-go-unpunished,’ cultivated for months by the AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee), Israeli diplomats, and most of the American Jewish and right-wing Christian community, has firmly taken root,” she noted.

Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have also blocked 150 million dollars in funding for security assistance to the PA in what even some of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s strongest U.S. backers here say will likely prove counterproductive, given the effectiveness of the PA’s security forces in keeping the West Bank relatively peaceful.

“If you cut off the PA, it’s going to fall on the head of the Israelis,” noted Elliott Abrams, who served as President George W. Bush’s top Middle East aide.

“If you destroy the state-building project that is underway, it isn’t clear that the United States or Israel will be better off,” he told a conference on U.S.-Israeli relations sponsored by the neo- conservative Hudson Institute and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Monday.

Testifying before Congress on the eve of PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s application to the U.N. Security Council for statehood status, David Makovsky of pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near Policy (WINEP) joined Abrams in warning that any aid cut-off could backfire.

“Policy-makers must always ask themselves a crucial question: Who benefits most from their actions,” he said. “I fear that the group that stands to gain the most …would be Hamas, a terrorist organisation that does not accept Israel’s existence,” he said.

The administration appears to be hoping that Netanyahu, who has long cultivated Congressional Republicans, will himself intervene to ensure that the aid keeps flowing, as he reportedly did earlier this year in favour of a 50-million-dollar disbursement to the PA.

But Netanyahu may not do so unless and until Abbas drops his demand that Israel halt all settlement activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem before he agrees to resume direct peace talks.

“We believe that if the Palestinians breach their commitments, avoid negotiations, and make an end-run around the peace process, there should be consequences,” Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren told the Jewish online publication Tablet last week in support of Congressional sanctions against aid to the Palestinians.

*Jim Lobe’s blog on U.S. foreign policy can be read at http://www.lobelog.com.