U.S. TO USE HAMAS VICTORY TO SQUEEZE ISRAEL FOR CONCESSIONS

U.S. To Use Hamas Upheaval To Squeeze Israel for Concessions (INN)
American President George W. Bush will press visiting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert next week to fork over to the Palestinian Authority (PA) hundreds of millions of dollars in tax money to prop up the standing of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. Israel collects the money from taxes on Arabs working in Israel and other tariffs.

"We want to get back to the situation where the Palestinians can get something that they've been robbed of too many times, which is peace in their streets, democracy in their government, and the ability to move toward what everybody in the region ought to hope for, which is two nations, sovereign, living peacefully and side by side," White House press secretary Tony Snow told reporters Thursday....

The Hamas coup in Gaza buried the ruins of the dreams of the administration of former American President Bill Clinton for a "New Middle East"," which literally blew up with the outbreak of the Oslo War in 2000.

However, both the White House and the State Department made it clear Thursday that they are determined to use the Hamas overthrow for the benefit of Abbas. One of its arguments is that Israel has no fear of the money reaching Hamas because Abbas has dissolved the Fatah-Hamas unity government, although Hamas leader Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has rejected the move as illegal....

Criticism is beginning to mount against America's 15-year campaign to forge a PA-Israeli peace agreement. Robert Malley, an expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the International Crisis Group, told the Post, "The less we try to intervene and shape Palestinian politics, the better off we will be. Almost every decision the United States has made to interfere with Palestinian politics has boomeranged."

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters this week, "We have called on others in the region to express their support for President Abbas and those Palestinian moderate political elements who have foresworn the use of violence and who have an interest in reaching a political settlement with Israel via the negotiating table and...we're going to continue to support President Abbas."