AIPAC acolytes in the House of Representatives are now demanding that the United States cut off aid to the Palestinians. The reason: Palestinians have sought redress for their grievances against Israel by turning to the United Nations rather than continuing pointless negotiations with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
According to Haaretz, two influential members of Congress actually marched to the United Nations to tell the Palestinians no soup for you.
Rep. Gary Ackerman [D-NY], member of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, stressed that "There may need to be a total cutoff of all aid to the Palestinians for pursuing this course of action which is very dangerous and ill advised."
"They should think twice, reverse course and get back to the negotiating table where Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu awaits them," he concluded.
Ackerman was accompanied by Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY), the ranking Democrat on the appropriations subcommittee which handles foreign aid. Again, Haaretz:
Congresswoman Nita Lowey called Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' actions a counter-productive publicity stunt, saying he is not interested in peace. "They [the Palestinians] have not been forced into this position, and the circumstances are not beyond their control. They have chosen to discontinue negotiations with Israel and pursue a counter-productive publicity stunt." she said. [...]
Lowey suggested Abbas' actions warrant a strong U.S. response. "His action cross a line and should lead to a reevaluation of U.S. assistance for the Palestinian Authority," she said.
The Palestinians currently receive $500 million from the United States, which the PA uses for a host of programs, including increasing capacity to fight terrorism, paying government salaries, feeding its people and providing medical care.
But Ackerman, Lowey and a host of their Democratic colleagues want to cut off the money. (Obviously, most Republicans do too, but since they oppose most foreign aid in general they are guilty only of the sin of greed, not hypocrisy.)
It hardly needs saying that the Democrats who want to punish the Palestinian people for ignoring our request that they not go to the United Nations have never threatened to cut our $3.5 billion in aid to Israel by even a dollar.
Israel has rejected repeated U.S. requests that it freeze settlements, ease the Gaza blockade and stop the abuse of Palestinians by settlers all without Congress murmuring a word of protest.
Even when General David Petraeus and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned that Israeli policies jeopardized U.S. interests (including our military personnel) in the region, Israel simply looked away and kept doing whatever it was doing. Congress most certainly didn't consider reducing aid; in fact, every budget proposal before Congress today exempts aid for Israel even while virtually all programs that benefit Americans are on the cutting block.
But now Ackerman, Lowey and the rest want to eliminate aid to the Palestinians, because they are taking their case to the U.N. Please!
Yes, the Palestinians are turning to the United Nations to achieve statehood, but Netanyahu has ignored repeated demands by the Obama administration to take action to facilitate negotiations. (Netanyahu's intransigence is the reason behind Abbas' U.N. push.) You didn't see Ackerman, Lowey and company criticize that, let alone suggest (heaven forbid) that aid to Israel be cut by even a nickel. In fact, both Ackerman and Lowey oppose linking aid to Israel to Israel's behavior. Ever. (This is AIPAC rule #1: No linkage.)
Here is the craziest part of the Ackerman/Lowey initiative. Not only is the aid cut opposed by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, it is also opposed by the government of Israel. In fact, Avigdor Lieberman's Israel Foreign Ministry issued a report on September 18, which said:
Israel calls for ongoing international support for the PA budget and development projects that will contribute to the growth of a vibrant private sector, which will provide the PA an expanded base for generating internal revenue.
Israel maintains bilateral dialogues with the PA on a variety of matters, aiming to support the upgrade of Palestinian infrastructure in these areas, including: financial and customs services, water and sewage infrastructure, the legal system and the rule of law, the agriculture sector, and the electricity network. [...]
These measures have been accompanied by intensified security coordination between the authorities on both sides, seeking greater security and improved institutional capacity. Israeli-Palestinian security coordination and the continuous relative security created have provided the necessary environment for business development and economic growth.
So who supports cutting off aid? Who is behind the Ackerman/Lowey effort?
The answer is easy: AIPAC. It is supporting Senate and House resolutions that urge aid cutoffs and other punitive measures against the Palestinians. Not for the first time, AIPAC's cutouts in Congress are taking their cues from the lobby, not from their own government or even the Israelis. So much for their supposed devotion to Israel. After all, if it were Israel they were worried about (and not keeping AIPAC and its donors happy in an election year) they would follow Israel's lead, not AIPAC's.
Of course, these usually progressive members of Congress don't believe a word they are saying. Ackerman, in particular, is so emphatically dovish in private that I laugh every time I read some hawkish statement from his office. And Lowey is pretty dovish herself. It's just that they have AIPAC breathing down their necks and it's AIPAC that directs the donors.
Of course, none of this is surprising, though it is nausea-producing. Aren't the Palestinians people? Don't they have rights? And don't those rights include the right of self-determination in their own land, occupied for 44 years? Don't they have a say?
According to our Congress, they don't.
Here is what Mohammed Shtayyeh, a member of the Palestinian delegation to the United Nations, told the The Independent:
Mr. Shtayyeh suggested that the congressional block on the funds earmarked for 2011, as disclosed by The Independent on Saturday, was particularly embarrassing for the US because even Israel was continuing, so far, to remit customs revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. He told the Maan news agency that the block had been imposed six weeks ago but he thought it was unlikely to be sustained. He added: "It is unbelievable that any parliament imposes sanctions on a people just because that people seeks self-determination and independence."
Sad to say, it's not unbelievable. It is just the way the American legislature operates because U.S. legislators' primary, if not only, goal is financing their reelection campaigns. The Israeli-Palestinian issue, as played out in Washington by the president and Congress, is always about winning the next election. The good news is that as public opinion shifts (and it is shifting) donor attitudes will shift, too. Time is not on AIPAC's side.
It reminds me of what the lobby likes to say about the Saudis: "What will they do when the oil runs out?" What will AIPAC do when a new generation moves to the fore and the money is directed elsewhere?
Follow MJ Rosenberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mjayrosenberg
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After pledging allegiance to our country.
I particularly like Gorenberg's observation at minute 7:00 that Israel is really interested ONLY in maintaining the 'Current One State Apartheid' and uninterested in either the Two State or REAL One State solution.
I think that's the crux of the issue - as Apartheid is overthrown this 'Current One State Apartheid' defaults into the 'REAL One State Solution'. Gorenberg gets halfway there but doesn't really understand that the default of the current situation is the One State.
Bloggingheads: Dimi Reider vs Gershom Gorenberg: One state or two?
http://972mag.com/bloggingheads-dimi-reider-vs-gershom-gorenberg-1-state-or-2/24642/
Netanyahu comes from a highly prejudice European Z family.
He will never make peace.
1) In 1920 San Remo Conference . A mandate was given for each section of the empire (Syria and Lebanon, Iraq, and Palestine). Britain received the mandate for Palestine that stated "recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country." It also provided that civil and religious rights of non-Jews in Palestine were to be protected. But the collective national and political rights were reserved for the Jewish people. This mandate was later approved by the Council of the League of Nations in 1922. Thus, became it an international treaty and legally binding.
2) Article 80 of the Charter of the United Nations requires that the existing rights of any state or people cannot be altered. Therefore, even the though the League of Nations dissolved, the Mandate for Palestine is in effect today. Palestine is still legally the land for the Jewish people.
3) Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization signed the 1995 Interim Agreement. This agreement dictated that neither side could unilaterally change the status of the West Bank or Gaza strip without the completion of negotiations over the permanent status of Israel and the PLO's relationship.because the negotiations are not complete, Palestine's unilateral bid for statehood in the U.N. breaks the treaty that it signed in 1995.
4)The U.S. should veto Palestine's statehood bid because it is illegal
The PA has applied for membership in the UN. Only states can apply for full membership.
In fact, it contributes to instability and a continued status quo if not in fact a deterioration of the entire situation.
1) Granting statehood without peace is contrary to previous UN resolutions which stated the path to palestinian statehood must be via a comprehensive peace agreement between the parties
2) Granting statehood without removes any incentive for the palestnians to agree to any peace. They have refused peace even with statehood as the reward previously. Giving them a reward for no peace is contrary to the most basic common sense as well as those previous resolutions
3) Granting statehood to a state that is effectively two separate entities, Gaza (under the rule of terrorists) and the west bank, removes any incentive for the palestinians to form any type of unified government representing all palestinians.
4) Granting statehood unilaterally is in violation of all previous agreements the palestinians signed with Israel stipulating that negotiations were the path to both peace and a palestinian state. Rewarding the violation of international agreements sets a very bad precedent and certainly will lead to more, not less, strife in the region.
It's always good to be specific.
Way to go, you think? I am saying, yes, I remember one of my kids doing that when she was little, screeching, throwing herself on the ground in the store, because I did not buy ser something right now. Giving in to that kind of behavior, as every parent knows, is stupid as you know what.
The migjty mousey Abbas made himself a contender with the big guys, and the big guys are responding with, yeah, you are all grown up now. Go take care of yourself. We are finished with you. I hope that is what their response is and will continue to be. Like you, I am fed up with subsidizing others, especially the Palestinians, who have been subsidized for 63 yrs with nothing to show for it and they shake their fists at the U.S. taxpayer's hardearned dollars and an U.S delegation, correction throw their shoes, that is just plain bad manners and really stupid..
We are being ripped off. Big time
On the other hans the Arabs use the Palestinian cause to defer from thier internal problems yet unlike the US they pledge money to the Palestinians and never deliver. Whose motives are more devious?
In reality the US owes the Palestinians nothing. Just read most of the posts by Palestinians and Palestinian media. The Palestinian population mostly professes hate towards the US.
Why do they not rail against the Arab Statres failure to deliver as promised?
What we have here is an hostile entity, trying to force a State (Palestine) within a State (Israel) and take over the capital of that State, Jerusalem. It is worse than the muslim/other split in the far East, Pakistan/India, which until today also is not working. This entity has declared war on the infidel, and especially the little and big Satans, forever. Yet it demands the money of those big and smaller Satans, and the others Abbas has shaken his fist at @ the UN.
I do not see Peace in any of this. If you do, please tell me. It will take a load off my shoulders.. The whole Declaration Comedy, a Demand and a Threat, nothing other, was to AVOID making Peace, to avoid negotiation, to avoid finding solutions. The Palestinian Refugees do not feature in Mr. Abbas' scenario, other than being shipped off once again, this time to Israel.
On the otherhand, the US/Israel veto of the statehood bid
1) forever destroys any attempt at the US being a fair broker (something they have not been since Bush I in any event, if then)
2) Pits the US and Israel against overwhelming world opinion;
3) Denies the Palestinians ad equal negotiating posture;
4) Supports the elements of Israel, perphas the controlling elements that do not support statehood in any event and for whom,
5) Right-winger Netanyahu counts on the fraud of endless, fruitless negotiations to buy more time for further expansion and rendering any plausible configuration of Palestinian territory impossible.
Please be honest, right-wingers on this post. You do not want any Palestinan state and this is what is really at the heart of your call for vetoing said statehood and cutting funding for the PA.
Incidentally, since the vast majority of US aid to the PA is spent policing and fighting terrorist slinter groups. Who is cutting whose throat here?
Very true
All the anti Palestinians here who claimed they were for a two state solution.
Should be for this peaceful initiative instead they are all showing their hypocrisy.