On Tuesday the New York Times reported that United
States and Israel were considering a campaign to starve the
Palestinian Authority of cash so that Palestinians would grow
disillusioned with Hamas and bring down the Hamas government.
The Times did not name any of its sources, so it was
not clear if the report was based on policy scenarios
exploring different options or if there were real policy
plans. Responding to the news story, Hamas mocked both the
U.S. and Israel. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack
said, "There is no plan, there is no plot." An Israeli
official also denied the report.
It is a matter of public record that the US and Israel have
taken the lead in urging other countries not to recognize
Hamas until they renounce violence and recognize the
fundamental rights of Israel, including the right to exist.
So far Hamas has done neither, and has insisted that it will
not in the future either. The position of most countries of
the world is that without this, Hamas cannot be considered a
legitimate, civilized government, even if it was elected
democratically.
According to the report, the plan is to starve the
Palestinian Authority of money and international connections
in the hope that president Mahmoud Abbas is eventually
compelled to call new elections. The hope is that
Palestinians will be so unhappy with life under Hamas that
they will return a chastened Fatah movement to office. The
officials also argue that Hamas won a smaller mandate than
previously understood.
The officials and diplomats who spoke to the New York
Times said that they are not authorized to speak publicly
on the issue. The Times did not explain if or how they
had verified the speculation.
Opinion polls show that Hamas's promise to better the lives
of the Palestinian people was the main reason it won. But the
United States and Israel say Palestinian life will only get
harder if Hamas does not meet those three demands. They say
Hamas plans to build up its militias and increase violence
and can be starved out of power.
The officials drafting the plan know that Hamas leaders have
repeatedly rejected demands to change and do not expect Hamas
to meet them. "The point is to put this choice on Hamas's
shoulders," a senior Western diplomat said. "If they make the
wrong choice, all the options lead in a bad direction."
The strategy has many risks. Hamas will certainly try to
secure support from the Islamic world, including Syria and
Iran, as well as from private donors.
It will blame Israel and the United States for its troubles,
appeal to the world not to punish the Palestinian people for
their free democratic choice, point to the real hardship that
a lack of cash will produce and may very well resort to an
open military confrontation with Israel.
One observer noted that there are other ways to measure an
improvement in life besides money. Life has been so chaotic,
lawless and corrupt under Fatah that Hamas can and probably
will improve many areas even without a lot of money. They
will get a lot of credit if they manage to get services
running and control internal violence.
The supposed destabilization plan centers largely on money.
The Palestinian Authority already has a monthly cash deficit
of some $60 million to $70 million after it receives money
from Israel that represents taxes and customs duties
collected by Israeli officials for the Palestinians. Israel
says it will cut off those payments once Hamas takes power,
and put the money in escrow.
Also, some of the aid that the Palestinians currently receive
will be stopped or reduced by the United States and European
Union governments, which are constrained by law or politics
from providing money to an authority run by Hamas which is
listed by Washington and the European Union as a terrorist
organization.
Israeli military officials have discussed cutting Gaza off
completely from the West Bank and making the Israeli-Gaza
border an international one. They also say they will not
allow Hamas members of the Palestinian parliament, some of
whom are wanted by Israeli security forces, to travel freely
between Gaza and the West Bank.
On Sunday, Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced after
a cabinet meeting that Israel would consider Hamas to be in
power on the day the new parliament is sworn in: this
Saturday.
So beginning next month, the Palestinian Authority will face
a cash deficit of at least $110 million a month, or more than
$1 billion a year, which it needs to pay salaries to its
140,000 employees.
The employment figure includes some 58,000 members of the
security forces, most of which are affiliated with the
defeated Fatah movement.
The Palestinian stock market has already fallen about 20
percent since the election on Jan. 25, and the Authority has
exhausted its borrowing capacity with local banks.
Hamas gets up to $100,000 a month in cash from abroad. "But
it's hard to move millions of dollars in suitcases," a
Western official said.
Mr. Abbas, the Fatah-affiliated president, has four more
years in office and is insistent that Hamas has a democratic
right to govern. But Mr. Abbas has also threatened to quit if
he does not have a government that can carry out his
fundamental policies — which include, he has said,
negotiations with Israel toward a final peace treaty based on
a permanent two-state solution. The United States and the
European Union have strongly urged him to stay on the job and
shoulder his responsibilities.
On Monday the departing parliament made an effort to boost
Mr. Abbas's powers by passing legislation giving him the
authority to appoint a new constitutional court that can veto
legislation deemed in violation of the Palestinians' basic
law.
Mr. Abbas would appoint the nine judges to the new court
without seeking parliamentary approval. Hamas immediately
objected, saying that Hamas would try to overturn the
decisions once the new legislature convened on Saturday.
Hamas will control at least 74 seats of the 132-member
parliament, and it is likely to have the support of six more
members on key votes. But more than 10 percent of the new
legislators are already in Israeli jails: 10 from Hamas, 3
from Fatah and one from the Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine.
The United States and Fatah believe that the Hamas victory
was far less sweeping than it appears, said Khalil Shikaki, a
pollster and the director of the Palestinian Center for
Policy and Survey Research.
If Fatah had forced its members to withdraw their independent
candidacies in constituencies where they split the votes with
official Fatah candidates, it might have won the election.
Hamas won 44 percent of the popular vote but 56 percent of
the seats, while Fatah won 42 percent of the popular vote but
only 34 percent of the seats.
A newly-elected Hamas legislator said that they will move on
two parallel fronts: to reform Palestinian political life,
and "to break the isolation of our government." If Hamas
succeeds on both fronts, he said, "we will achieve a great
thing for our people, a normal life with security and a state
of law, where no one can abuse power."
