A Fool's Game withHamas
ByKenneth R.Timmerman
FrontPageMagazine.com |February 23, 2006
Is former World Bankchairman James Wolfensohn making U.S. policy toward Hamas?
I put that question to theState Department after receiving reports about Wolfensohn's trip inmid-February to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar,where my sources told me he was soliciting Gulf Arab leaders tofinance the new Hamas-led government in the PalestinianAuthority.
After all, on January 29 -just days after the Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections -Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice declared that "the United Statesis not prepared to fund an organization that advocates thedestruction of Israel, that advocates violence and that refuses itsobligations."
From Capitol Hill to London, Paris, Berlin and Jerusalem, her wordssounded crystal clear. Even the Europeans agreed to cut off aid tothe Palestinian Authority, no questions asked.
So what was Wolfensohndoing banging his tin cup with the Gulf Arabs ten days ago? Was itjust some kind of pre-retirement personal crisis for an outsizedenergizer-bunny personality?
Thanks to his prodding, theSaudis announced they were prepared to give a Hamas-led government inthe Palestinian Authority $100 million, totally undercutting the U.S.and European effort to "tame" Hamas by cutting the financialpursestrings.
"Mr. Wolfensohn is his ownman. He always has been," one State Department official who workswith him told me. "We had a pool in the office to see who could guesswhen he'd make his first visit to the office we gave him here."
That was eight months ago.Wolfensohn did finally show up in the office a few months later, buthe hardly ever uses it and cannot be reached through it. The StateDepartment official assigned to him said he "mostly on the road" or"working out of New York," but could not be reached to talk to thepress.
When Wolfensohn retiredfrom the World Bank last year, he convinced the Bush administrationto set him up as the "Quartet Special Envoy for Disengagement." Inprinciple, this meant that the United States, Russia, the EuropeanUnion, and the United Nations (the "Quartet") had authorized him towork with the Israelis and the Palestinians to ensure the peacefulhand-over of Israeli assets when the Israelis left Gaza.
Wolfensohn was so convincedof his vision for the future that last August he called friends inthe U.S. Jewish community-- including real estate magnate and U.S.News & World Report chairman Mortimer B. Zuckerman - to fork out$14 million to buy greenhouses in Gaza from the Israelis settlers whowere about to be evicted, and donate them to the Palestinians. (Healso put some of his own money at risk, I am told).
Less than one month later,after the Israeli disengagement from Gaza, angry Palestinian mobslooted them and pulled most of the greenhouses to the ground, givingthe world a foretaste of how successful the dream of peacefulPalestinian development was going to be.
But Wolfensohn ispersistent. From protecting new Palestinian assets from thePalestinians, he turned to the real problems: reforming thePalestinian Authority, its endemic corruption, and helping to achievelegal and regulatory reform.
"Then we were faced withthe rather surprising result to the [Palestinian] election,"one of his aides told me. "So the issue became what can we do to getthe financing needed to make sure the caretaker government can makeit."
But Condi Rice never saidthe "issue" was funding a caretaker government; it was gettinginternational support for a cut-off in funding to the PalestinianAuthority led by Hamas.
"Mr. Wolfensohn's messageduring his talks in the region earlier this month was not pre-clearedwith the Department," NEA spokesman Gregg Sullivan said. That is apretty substantial revelation.
Wolfensohn had long beenurging the Gulf Arabs to get more directly involved in funding thePalestinian Authority directly, instead of allowing privateindividuals and charities to fund Hamas, as they had been doing inthe past. The State Department approved those efforts in the hope itwould help bring about "a moderate government" in the PA, Sullivansaid.
During Wolfensohn's mostrecent trip, he asked the Saudis "to start funding of the PA thatwould be ongoing, sustainable, and that would support the social andpolitical reforms the Palestinians themselves have been callingfor."
Rice has indicated thatwhile the U.S. and Europe have cut all direct funding to the PA, theycould continue to fund of Non-governmental organizations to carry outthe type of social work that Hamas used to provide.
"We may have to getcreative," Sullivan said. "It doesn"t mean we won't continue toprovide funding to the Palestinians."
That sounds to me likewe're about to get half-pregnant. You can't defund the PalestinianAuthority because it has been taken over by Hamas, and yet fundsocial welfare programs and development programs that free up moneythat Hamas and the PA can use for their own purposes, including therecruitment and training of suicide bombers.
The rationale now beingproposed by the State Department was picked up by Dr. Eran Lerman ina recent weekly briefing paper circulated by the American JewishComittee.
While both Israel and theQuartet are wary of helping Hamas, they also fear "starving" thePalestinian people by a total aid cut-off. "There is an acuteawareness among Israeli decision-makers, from within the IDF all theway to the highest national level, that for legal, moral, andstrategic reasons, this would be a harmful and potentially disastrousoutcome," Lerman writes. Among the potential disasters: increasingradicalization (increasing?) of the Palestinian population, anddeeper inroads by Iran.
The goal is "to peel theHamas government off the people who may have voted for it-but stillneed to be offered an alternative way to keep their families alive,"by allowing NGOs and aid agencies to provide aid directly torecipients. "After all, Hamas previously did the same to Fatah, bymaintaining a parallel structure," Lerman writes. "We are now calledupon to help beat them at their own game."
James Wolfensohn agreed tofloat the trial balloon. And through his own flamboyance andunpredictable character, he has given the State Department plausibledeniability should the American public get wind of his efforts toallow the Gulf Arabs to fund a Hamas-run terror state in thePalestinian Authority.
It's a fool's game, and itdoesn't pass the smell test.
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Original article:http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=21420
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Kenneth R. Timmerman
President, Middle East Data Project, Inc.
Author: Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown withIran
Tel: 301-946-2918
Reply to: timmerman.road@verizon.net
Website: www.KenTimmerman.com
Copyright©2006, Kenneth R. Timmerman