NYT Blares: US, Israel To Destabilize Peaceful Terrorist Palestinian Democracy!

Horrors!

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 intention is to starve the Palestinian Authority of money and international connections to the point where, some months from now, its president, Mahmoud Abbas, is compelled to call a new election. The hope is that Palestinians will be so unhappy with life under Hamas that they will return to office a reformed and chastened Fatah movement.

The officials also argue that a close look at the election results shows that Hamas won a smaller mandate than previously understood.

The officials and diplomats, who said this approach was being discussed at the highest levels of the State Department and the Israeli government, spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.

Today, an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, Mark Regev, was quoted by The Associated Press as saying "there was no such plan."

But the officials and diplomats say Hamas will be given a choice: recognize Israel's right to exist, forswear violence and accept previous Palestinian-Israeli agreements — as called for by the United Nations and the West — or face isolation and collapse.

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 must 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."

On NPR, of course, a terrorist apologist was calling for us to give (terrorist) war a chance and give the Palestinians all the money they might want.

Excuse me, but wasn't the promise of payments to the PA predicated on the premise that they'd renounce violence and seek a peaceful, two-state solution? If the Palestinians have reneged on their end of the deal, why should we continue paying them billions?

To the NPR apologist, the answer is simple: The Hamas terrorists now in the government were democratically elected. But so what? People can vote for terrorists, tyrants, and warmakers; does this commit the US to ignore their choices? Or, rather, support their choices?

Elections have consequences.

posted by Ace at 12:34 PM

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