HAMAS AND THE WEST….I’m confused. The New York Times says that Israel, the U.S., and Europe are trying to figure out ways to bring down the newly elected Hamas government in the Palestinian Authority:
The United States and Israel are discussing ways to destabilize the Palestinian government so that newly elected Hamas officials will fail and elections will be called again, according to Israeli officials and Western diplomats.
….The officials said the destabilization plan centers largely on money. The Palestinian Authority has a monthly cash deficit of some $60 million to $70 million after it receives between $50 million and $55 million a month from Israel in taxes and customs duties collected by Israeli officials at the borders but owed to the Palestinians.
Israel says it will cut off those payments once Hamas takes power, and put the money in escrow. On top of that, some of the aid that the Palestinians currently receive will be stopped or reduced by the United States and European Union governments, which will be constrained by law or politics from providing money to an authority run by Hamas.
But then, coming out of nowhere, is this sentence:
The United States and the European Union in particular want any failure of Hamas in leadership to be judged as Hamas’s failure, not one caused by Israel and the West.
There is no further explanation of this sentence, which seems to have no relationship to anything that comes before or after it. But if Israel and the West plan to cut off the bulk of the PA’s income, how can they possibly believe that Hamas’s failure won’t be seen as being caused by Israel and the West? Any guesses?
