International Arab-Israeli Conflict, v3: Israel approves new permanent US embassy site in West Jerusalem

[HomerThompson]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will open a new embassy in Jerusalem in May to coincide with Israel’s 70th anniversary, the State Department said on Friday, in a move reversing decades of U.S. policy.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...sy-in-may-state-department-idUSKCN1G72HQ?il=0

They're opening the embassy much faster than I thought they would.

 

[mcveteran81]

U.S. plans to move Israel's embassy to Jerusalem on May 14.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration plans to officially move the United States Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May to mark the 70th anniversary of the creation of the state, two American officials said on Friday.

The timetable is earlier than the one offered as recently as last month by Vice President Mike Pence, who said during a visit to Israel that the embassy would open by the end of 2019.

Link Source 1 (New York Times) : https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/23/world/middleeast/trump-embassy-jerusalem-.html

Link Source 2 (USA Today) : https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...e-israels-embassy-jerusalem-may-14/366672002/

The State Department will formally designate a facility in Jerusalem’s Arnona neighborhood, currently used for consular affairs, as an embassy, even as plans proceed to eventually build a new compound that could take several more years to open.

President Trump on Friday boasted of his decision to recognize Jerusalemas the capital of Israel during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland, drawing enthusiastic applause.

While other presidents held back from such a move for fear of triggering a backlash among Arabs and prejudging final peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, Mr. Trump said he defied “incredible” pressure to do what he considered the right thing.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry declined to comment. But a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition welcomed the plan to go ahead with an embassy move. “I would like to congratulate Donald Trump, the President of the US @POTUS on his decision to transfer the US Embassy to our capital on Israel’s 70th Independence Day,” Israel Katz, the minister of transportation and intelligence, wrote on Twitter. “There is no greater gift than that! The most just and correct move. Thanks friend!”

The timing of the embassy move may only amplify Palestinian outrage. For the Palestinians, Israel’s 70th anniversary also marks 70 years of the “Nakba,” or “catastrophe,” when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled or fled their homes and became refugees during the hostilities leading up to, and the war surrounding, Israel’s creation in 1948.

“The decision of the U.S. administration to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to choose the anniversary of the Nakba of the Palestinian people for carrying out this step expresses a flagrant violation of the law,” Saeb Erekat, the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the veteran Palestinian chief negotiator, said in a statement on Friday.

The choice of date, he added, would “provoke the feelings of all Arabs and Muslims.”

American officials on Friday did not comment on why they decided to move up the date for the opening, but it will carry special emotional resonance in Israel coming on its Independence Day on May 14, the anniversary of the state’s founding in 1948.

--------------------------

 

[mcveteran81]

delete.

 

[ShoelessRye]

Adelson paid $300M+ to make it happen in past three Presidential elections and even offered to help paid for building it now. Interesting how one person can influence American foreign policy in such a way - and with Chinese money to boot.

 

[HomerThompson]

Adelson paid $300M+ to make it happen in past three Presidential elections and even offered to help paid for building it now. Interesting how one person can influence American foreign policy in such a way - and with Chinese money to boot.

Chinese money? Does he operate casinos in China as well?

 

[Arkain2K]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will open a new embassy in Jerusalem in May to coincide with Israel’s 70th anniversary, the State Department said on Friday, in a move reversing decades of U.S. policy.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...sy-in-may-state-department-idUSKCN1G72HQ?il=0

They're opening the embassy much faster than I thought they would.

Wow, I seriously thought they wouldn't get it done for at least another year or two!

 

[HomerThompson]

Wow, I seriously thought they wouldn't get it done for at least another year or two!

Same.

 

[Arkain2K]

As long as the contribution doesn't violate any existing laws, I have no problem with Sheldon Adelson (or any other Jewish billionaires for that matter) offering to pay for the construction of the new U.S embassy in Jerusalem instead of our tax dollars.

Pretty sure the whiners would still find a way to whine though, as if they'd want to pay for it instead.

US Weighs Sheldon Adelson Offer to Fund Jerusalem Embassy
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | FEB. 23, 2018

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is considering an offer from Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson to pay for at least part of a new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, four U.S. officials told The Associated Press.

Lawyers at the State Department are looking into the legality of accepting private donations to cover some or all of the embassy costs, the officials said. The discussions are occurring as the administration plans a ribbon-cutting for a scaled-down, temporary embassy that will open in May — more than a year ahead of schedule.

In one possible scenario, the administration would solicit contributions not only from Adelson but potentially from other donors in the evangelical Christian and American Jewish communities, too. One official said Adelson, a Las Vegas casino magnate and staunch Israel supporter, had offered to pay the difference between the total cost — expected to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars — and what the administration is able to raise.

Under any circumstance, letting private citizens cover the costs of an official government building would mark a significant departure from historical practice. In the Jerusalem case, it would add yet another layer of controversy to Trump's politically charged decision to move the embassy, given Adelson's longstanding affiliation with right-wing Israeli politics.

The move of the embassy from Tel Aviv to the disputed holy city cleared a final bureaucratic hurdle this week when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signed off on the security plan. In a letter sent to Congress, the State Department said the interim facility's inauguration will coincide with the 70th anniversary of Israel's independence on May 14.

"It's the right thing to do," Trump said Friday of the embassy relocation.

Adelson's unconventional offer, made around the time Trump announced in December that the embassy would move, would address the president's stated distaste for shelling out eye-popping sums for overseas diplomatic facilities. Although Trump has promoted the Jerusalem move as fulfilling a key campaign promise, he also was outspoken last month in blasting the $1 billion price tag for a new embassy in London.

How quickly to move the embassy has been a source of intense debate within Trump's administration, said the officials, who weren't authorized to discuss the issue publicly and demanded anonymity.

Tillerson, who opposed moving the embassy in the first place, advocated a go-slow approach and said it could take years. But Ambassador David Friedman, who lobbied Trump to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, has pushed to move it sooner.

To enable a May opening, the administration settled on a phased approach to building out the embassy at an existing U.S. facility in Jerusalem's Arnona neighborhood that currently handles consular affairs like passports and visas.

Initially, the U.S. will merely retrofit a small suite of offices there to accommodate Friedman and one or two top aides. The rest of the staff will remain at first in America's current facility in Tel Aviv.

The Arnona facility will be expanded accommodate a regular contingent of embassy personnel by the end of 2019, and ultimately is likely to spill into an adjacent U.S.-controlled property that currently houses a home for senior citizens, officials said. The State Department said a separate search was starting "in parallel" to eventually plan and build a permanent embassy.

Israel's government hailed the impending move, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying on Twitter that it would turn Israel's anniversary "into an even greater national celebration." But Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat said the move showed Trump was determined to destroy prospects for a two-state solution and "provoke the feelings of the Palestinian people."

Retrofitting just a few offices can be accomplished at minimal cost. But expanding to allow the bulk of America's diplomatic staff in Israel to work out of Jerusalem would easily cost more than $500 million dollars, officials familiar with the process said. Particularly pricey are the strict security requirements for embassies that are written into U.S. law.

It's unclear how much of the cost Adelson might be willing to cover.

The White House declined to comment. An Adelson spokesman didn't respond to multiple requests for comment.

The State Department said it had "nothing to announce" and "no confirmation or details about this hypothetical proposal." Undersecretary of State Steve Goldstein added that there had been no "formal talks" with private citizens about funding.

It's not clear if there is any precedent, nor whether government lawyers would give the green light to accept Adelson's or anyone else's donations.

Kathy Bethany, the former cost management director for the State Department's Bureau of Overseas Building Operations, said she couldn't recall the U.S. government ever accepting donations to build embassies during her tenure, which ended in 2014.

"I don't know how well that would work," Bethany said. "Would we be beholden to putting their name on the building? I've never heard of that."

There are several ways, in theory, that it could work. Citizens could cut a general check to the U.S. Treasury and unofficially "earmark" their dollars as being intended to offset the embassy's cost. The State Department's Foreign Affairs Manual also lays out a formal process for accepting gifts, including real estate, requiring a rigorous review to ensure the gift "would not give the appearance of a conflict of interest."

Adelson, who donated $5 million to Trump's inaugural committee, is one of the Republican Party's biggest donors and a major Netanyahu supporter. Adelson also finances Israel Hayom, a pro-Netanyahu newspaper that is distributed free throughout Israel.

Allowing donations from Adelson or others would come with significant political risk for Trump. The president already faces major criticism from Palestinians and others who say his decision to move the embassy to Jerusalem — also claimed by the Palestinians for the capital of their future state — tipped the scales unfairly in Israel's favor.

Mort Klein, president of the pro-Israel group Zionist Organization of America and a close associate of Adelson, said accepting donations would be ill-advised. Klein said he knew Adelson was "deeply interested" in seeing the embassy relocate to Jerusalem but didn't know whether the casino mogul had offered to help pay for it himself.

"This is a government project. It's a government-run embassy," Klein said. "I don't want people to be able to say it was Jewish money."

https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/02/23/us/politics/ap-us-trump-jerusalem-embassy.html

 

[Arkain2K]

A Quiet Jerusalem Neighborhood Gets a U.S. Embassy
By ISABEL KERSHNER | FEB. 26, 2018

The United States Embassy will be temporarily housed in American consular offices, center, in the Arnona neighborhood of Jerusalem. ​

JERUSALEM — For what may be the most visible foreign policy step the United States has taken since President Trump took office, the American Embassy set to open in Jerusalem in three months is a bit hard to spot.

The ambassador’s new quarters — really, a provisional office until a full-fledged embassy building is erected — will be located in what is now the consular services section of the United States Consulate General, a low-lying, fortresslike compound. It is half-hidden down a steep incline off a quiet, residential street a few miles south of the Old City. Not much can be seen from the road, apart from a large American flag flying from the rooftop.

But the Trump administration’s decision to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem has not gone unnoticed. Nor has Washington’s seeming determination to accelerate the move.

When Mr. Trump announced in December that he was veering from almost seven decades of American policy — and that of the vast majority of the world’s nations — and formally recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, White House officials spoke of the embassy move taking several years.

A month later, addressing the Israeli Parliament, Vice President Mike Pence pledged that the new embassy would open by the end of 2019.

Then, on Friday, the White House said that it wanted to open a temporary embassy in Jerusalem in time for the 70th anniversary of the creation of the state of Israel, on May 14. As a first step, the State Department said, the consular building in the Arnona neighborhood would carve out some office space for Ambassador David M. Friedman and a small staff, and would become the interim Embassy.

By the end of next year, the compound is to be expanded to include an interim embassy annex providing more office space for the ambassador and his team. Mr. Friedman is expected to commute from his seaside residence in Herzliyya, north of Tel Aviv, until a secure residence can be found in Jerusalem.

A search is underway for a site for a permanent embassy to be built, but for the foreseeable future, the face of the United States government will be in Arnona.

The consular section there, which opened in 2010, is the newest and most secure United States facility in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, according to a State Department official. The official added that there was no change to the mandate of the consulate general, which is housed in a separate, historic building in central Jerusalem and engages in a wide range of political, economic, cultural, and educational contacts in the West Bank and Gaza, as well as in Jerusalem, and also serves American citizens there.

Life in Arnona seemed to be continuing quietly Sunday morning. Across the street from the American consular compound, Naomi Elook, 63, an Israel cosmetician, runs a small beauty salon in the basement of the apartment building where she has lived for 30 years. A young Muslim woman in a flowered head scarf was waiting for a treatment, and Ms. Elook said that 80 percent of her clients were Palestinians from East Jerusalem.

“I am happy about the embassy move,” she said. “It will enrich the neighborhood and bring more security.”

The Arnona compound sits between the predominantly Jewish West Jerusalem and East Jerusalem, which Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 war and then annexed in a move that was never internationally recognized. But the compound has always been in Israel’s possession and so is not, experts say, considered occupied territory.

“There are infinite ways in which the embassy move is horrible, counterproductive, destructive,” said Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli attorney who specializes in Jerusalem affairs. “But the site is not the problem.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/world/middleeast/jerusalem-us-embassy.html

 

[Arkain2K]

Arab League says U.S. aid cut for U.N. agency puts stability at risk

​

CAIRO (Reuters) - Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit said on Thursday that a cut in U.S. funding for a U.N. agency that helps Palestinian refugees will put the stability and security of the region at risk.

The United States, by far the largest contributor to UNRWA, announced on Jan. 16 that Washington would withhold $65 million of $125 million it had planned for the agency this year. UNRWA is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions from U.N. member states.

U.S. President Donald Trump has questioned the value of such funding, and the State Department said the agency needed to make unspecified reforms.

“It is no secret that this trend poses a threat to the refugee issue ... as well as the negative consequences that will not only affect the receiving countries of refugees, but also the stability and security of the region,” Aboul Gheit said at an Arab League meeting.

More than half of the two million people in Gaza are dependent on support from UNRWA and other humanitarian agencies. Palestinians say the funding decision could deepen hardship in the Gaza Strip, where the unemployment rate is 46 percent.

UNRWA was established by the U.N. General Assembly in 1949 after hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes in the 1948 war that followed Israel’s creation.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...=Feed:+Reuters/worldNews+(Reuters+World+News)

 

[squeezewax]

[yt]

 

[Arkain2K]

Palestinians angry at reports of early U.S. embassy move to Jerusalem
Ali Sawafta, Nidal al-Mughrabi | February 23, 2018

A demonstrator holds a Palestinian flag as he sits during clashes with Israeli troops near the Jewish settlement of Beit El, near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank February 23, 2018.​

RAMALLAH, West Bank/GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinians reacted on Friday with anger to reports that the United States will move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem within months, saying this could destroy the prospect of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Clashes erupted in Gaza and the occupied West Bank earlier on Friday in a weekly protest against U.S. President Donald Trump’s stance on Jerusalem, which has also angered Arab political and religious leaders across the region and dismayed European allies.

Palestinians claim East Jerusalem — seized by Israel in 1967 and later annexed — as the capital of a future state.

Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian’s chief negotiator in peace talks that have been frozen since 2014, said the U.S. move showed a“determination to violate international law, destroy the two-state solution and provoke the feelings of the Palestinian people as well as of all Arabs, Muslims and Christians around the globe”.

Erekat, who is also secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, said:“Trump and his team have disqualified the U.S. from being part of the solution between Israelis and Palestinians; rather, the world now sees that they are part of the problem.”

Trump announced in December that the United States would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, setting in motion the embassy move and contravening decades of policy by the international community.

A U.S. official told Reuters on Friday that the United States was expected to open its embassy to Israel in Jerusalem in May. This would be shortly after Israel’s 70th anniversary.

“This is an unacceptable step. Any unilateral move will not give legitimacy to anyone and will be an obstacle to any effort to create peace in the region,” said Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.

Abbas has rejected U.S.-led Middle East peace efforts as“impossible” since Washington’s decision.

Abu Rdainah said the only way to achieve peace, security and stability was Abbas’s proposal — outlined in an address to the United Nations Security Council in New York on Tuesday — that an international conference should be held to kick-start the peace process, including a“multilateral mechanism” to oversee it.

Abbas is still in the United States after undergoing medical checks in Baltimore on Thursday but will leave on Saturday, Abu Rdaineh said.

In Gaza, a Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri, said:“Moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem is a declaration of war against the Arab and Muslim nation, and the U.S administration must reconsider its move.”

Twenty five Palestinians were wounded by Israeli army gunfire during clashes along the fence with Israel in Gaza on Friday, a Gaza health ministry spokesman. Protesters threw stones at the Israeli troops.

Palestinian health officials said at least 20 Palestinians, most of them in Gaza, have been killed in protests against Trump’s decision since the Dec. 6 announcement.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...y-u-s-embassy-move-to-jerusalem-idUSKCN1G72B3

 

[meauneau]

Why does the US care so much about placing an embassy in Jerusalem?

 

[jeffk]

https://www.timesofisrael.com/on-ev...-aipac-chief-calls-for-palestinian-statehood/

On eve of Netanyahu-Trump talks, AIPAC chief calls for Palestinian statehood


What's needed, Howard Kohr declares, is 'two states for two peoples: One Jewish with secure and defensible borders, and one Palestinian with its own flag and its own future'

WASHINGTON — While Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu no longer endorses full statehood for the Palestinians, and the Trump administration has grudgingly said it would support a two-state solution if the two sides agreed to it, the head of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC on Sunday launched an impassioned plea for Palestinian statehood and for holding on to belief in the possibility of peace.

more at

https://www.timesofisrael.com/on-ev...-aipac-chief-calls-for-palestinian-statehood/

Basically, he is saying Bibi and Trump and the Palestinian leadership all eat ass.

 

[Arkain2K]

Bomb Targets Palestinian Authority PM’s Convoy in Gaza
By Fadwa Hodali and Saud Abu Ramadan |March 13, 2018

Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah waves to the crowd upon his arrival in Gaza City on March 13.​

The Palestinian Authority’s premier escaped an apparent assassination attempt in the Gaza Strip Tuesday, when a bomb struck his convoy on a mission to bolster reconciliation efforts with the territory’s Hamas rulers.

The roadside device exploded as Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah and intelligence chief Majed Faraj entered Gaza in a motorcade after passing through the fortified Erez crossing from Israel. The assault came hours before a White House conference on trying to rescue Gaza from economic chaos. Trump administration envoy Jason Greenblatt condemned the attack on Hamdallah in a Twitter message.

Both officials survived unscathed on the rare visit from the West Bank, and went ahead with a ceremony to open a waste-water treatment plant in Gaza. There was no claim of responsibility, but a statement carried by the official Wafa news agency said the Palestinian Authority held Hamas, which seized control of the tiny coastal enclave 11 years ago, accountable.

“Those who are in charge shoulder the full responsibility for security on the ground,” Faraj said in the statement, a clear reference to Hamas.

Hamas condemned the attack, and issued a statement saying it “deplored” the PA’s accusations that it was to blame.

The incident comes amid a fragile Egyptian-brokered reconciliation effort between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement, and the Islamist Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and European Union. Hamas still controls Gaza, a 40-kilometer (25-mile) long sliver of territory with almost 2 million people, even after signing the latest in a series of reconciliation agreements last year with the PA.

In a speech at the water treatment plant, Hamdallah said that the blast damaged three of the more than 20 vehicles in his convoy just minutes after it entered Gaza.

“I say in spite of the explosion today, it won’t stop us from carrying on our mission to achieve unity,” Hamdallah said. “We are committed to solving all of Gaza’s problems.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...inian-authority-pm-s-convoy-as-it-enters-gaza​

​

 

[Arkain2K]

Mahmoud Abbas blames Hamas for Gaza attack on PM's convoy
President Abbas says Hamas orchestrated attack on prime minister's convoy, prompting Hamas to call for elections.​

Mahmoud Abbas said that if the "assassination attempt" had succeeded, the attack would have opened the door for a bloody civil war​

President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, has accused Hamas of orchestrating the explosion that targeted the convoy of Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah as he entered the Gaza Strip last week.

"We do not want them to investigate, we do not want information from them, we do not want anything from them because we know exactly that they, the Hamas movement, were the ones who committed this incident," Abbas said at a meeting of the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah late on Monday.

Hamdallah's convoy, which included the Palestinian Authority's intelligence chief Majed Faraj, was attacked just after the delegation crossed through the Israeli-controlled Erez checkpoint, known to Palestinians as Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza.

Faraj and Hamdallah remained unharmed, while seven security guards were wounded in the blast.

Shortly after the attack, Hamas said it was launching an investigation to uncover who was behind the blast and deflected the PA's comments blaming the Gaza-based group for the incident.

Speaking during Monday's meeting, Abbas said that if the "assassination attempt" had succeeded, the development would have opened the door for a bloody civil war.

Call for elections

In response to Abbas' accusations, Hamas called for elections.

"We are shocked by the tense stance that Abbas has taken. This position burns bridges and strengthens division and strikes the unity of our people," Hamas said in a press release.

"In light of all this, Hamas calls for general elections, including presidential, parliamentary and national council elections, so that the Palestinian people can choose their leadership."

The attack and subsequent statements by both sides mark a serious deterioration in relations between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, the semi-autonomous body that governs the occupied West Bank.

Fatah, the ruling party within the PA, and Hamas, the party that governs the occupied Gaza Strip, signed a reconciliation agreement in October 2017, ending a decade of division that saw two parallel governments operating in Gaza and the West Bank, respectively.

But the deal was never fully implemented due to differences within the two political factions, which are the largest in Palestinian politics.

Analysts said the attack on Hamdallah's convoy was intended to put a strain on reconciliation efforts.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018...as-gaza-attack-pm-convoy-180320055826397.html

 

[Arkain2K]

Hamas slams Abbas for threatening sanctions on Gaza
By Khaled Abu Toameh | 20 March 2018

Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups on Monday strongly condemned Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for threatening to impose new sanctions on the Gaza Strip.

In a statement issued shortly after Abbas warned of the move in a speech before Palestinian leaders in Ramallah, Hamas said that his “irresponsible statements” were aimed at “bringing our people in the Gaza Strip to their knees at this difficult and dangerous phase.”

In his address, Abbas announced that he had decided to take “legal, national and financial measures” against Hamas to “protect the Palestinian national project.” He did not provide further details.

Last year, Abbas imposed a series of measures against the Gaza Strip that included suspending Palestinian Authority payments to Israel for electricity supplies to the coastal enclave. Abbas also cut off salaries to thousands of Gaza’s civil servants and forced many others into early retirement.

Hamas on Monday accused Abbas of working to “undermine the prospects of advancing the Palestinian national project and achieving national unity.”

The terror group that rules the Gaza Strip also accused Abbas of “exacerbating the separation between the Gaza Strip and West Bank, paving the way for the implementation of the scheme of chaos and [US President Donald] Trump’s deal of the century and Zionist projects.”

Trump has referred to his peace plan, the details of which have yet to be made public, as the “deal of the century.”

In its statement, Hamas accused Abbas of sabotaging the ongoing Egyptian effort to achieve Palestinian unity. “Abbas’s actions are destructive and dangerous,” the group charged, and called on the Arab League to urgently intervene to stop “this dangerous deterioration and prevent disaster” in the Palestinian internal arena.

Hamas also rejected Abbas’s allegations over its responsibility for last week’s bombing of the convoy of Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah and General Intelligence Chief Majed Faraj in the northern Gaza Strip, and accused him of “tampering with the process of justice and investigation” into the incident.

Hamas also renewed its call for holding new presidential and parliamentary elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip “so that the people would be able to choose their leadership.”

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad group said that Abbas’s remarks “endanger Palestinian unity and provide additional support for Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.”

The terror group called on all Palestinian factions to “rally behind the resistance and protect it, and not conspire against it.”

Khader Habib, a senior Islamic Jihad official in the Gaza Strip, called for a Palestinian “intifada” against the “entire political system.” He, too, said that Abbas’s sanctions were aimed at “subjugating and humiliating the Palestinians and their resistance.”

Khaled Abu Hilal, leader of the Alahrar terror group, said he had never seen Abbas use such offensive language in response to Israeli “assaults and assassinations” against Palestinians.

Yasser Zaatreh, a Palestinian commentator staunchly opposed to Abbas, accused the PA president of behaving as if he were the enemy of the Palestinians. “Abbas does not want reconciliation with the Gaza Strip,” he argued. “He hates Hamas and [deposed Fatah leader Mohammed] Dahlan more than he hates the Zionist entity. For Abbas, the Gaza Strip is Hamas and Dahlan.”

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, one of several PLO terror groups, said that Abbas’s new measures were directed against the “reconciliation,” Hamas and the Palestinian “resistance” in the Gaza Strip. “Imposing the sanctions will lead to the collapse of the Gaza Strip.”

Meanwhile, several Palestinians took to social media to vent their anger against Abbas, denouncing him as a “whore,” “traitor,” “rat,” “dog” and “senile.” Some Palestinians called on Hamas to retaliate by outlawing Abbas’s Fatah faction in the Gaza Strip.

Fatah, for its part, came out in defense of Abbas. On its official Facebook page, the faction posted a photo of Abbas accompanied with the caption “We’re proud of you!”

https://www.timesofisrael.com/pales...slam-abbas-for-threatening-sanctions-on-gaza/

 

[Arkain2K]

Congress set to cut Palestinian aid over "Martyrs fund"
Bryant Harris March 22, 2018​

After months of negotiations and multiple revisions, Congress is on the verge of mandating that the Donald Trump administration cut economic assistance to the West Bank and Gaza that “directly benefits” the Palestinian Authority (PA).

The legislation, known as the Taylor Force Act, was incorporated into a government spending bill that Congress must pass by Friday in order to avert a government shutdown. Unless the PA ceases its so-called martyr payments to Palestinian assailants responsible for attacks in Israel and to the assailants’ families, the aid cuts will soon go into effect.

The House passed the $1.3 trillion spending bill 256-167 and the Senate will vote soon. The White House has said that Trump will sign it into law.

“After over two years of very hard work, we are on the verge of having the Taylor Force Act become law,” said Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the chief architect of the bill in the Senate. “The Palestinian Authority pays monetary rewards to terrorists and their families. These rewards for terrorist attacks are inconsistent with American values. They are inconsistent with decency and they are certainly inconsistent with peace.”

The State Department plans to spend about $215 million in economic assistance for the West Bank and Gaza this year and has requested another $215 million in its 2019 budget request. Once Trump signs the bill into law, the State Department will have 15 days to report to Congress on what programs will be subject to cuts. The United States does not provide the PA with any direct budgetary support but uses some Palestinian assistance funds to pay off PA debts to Israel, which nonetheless supports the bill.

“Israel applauds Congress for working to pass the Taylor Force Act, which sends a clear message to the Palestinian Authority to stop the abhorrent practice of paying terrorists and their families for the murder of Jews,” Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, told Al-Monitor in an emailed statement.

Opponents of the bill argue that it is politically untenable for PA President Mahmoud Abbas to end the payments, particularly in light of Trump’s recent recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital as well as his decision to cut $65 million in separate funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

“Under the current circumstances, it would be politically suicidal for Abbas to be seen as kowtowing to Trump … because he would basically be seen as having rewarded the Americans,” Mouin Rabbani, a senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies, told Al-Monitor. “What I think [the PA] will do is present this, quite rightly, as another attempt at political blackmail.”

Graham named his bill after the son of two of his constituents; the son, Taylor Force, was a US Army veteran stabbed to death by a Palestinian attacker while in Tel Aviv in 2016. Israeli police killed the assailant, Bashar Massalha, at the scene. The PA has distributed monthly stipends to Massalha’s family since the attack while Israel has retaliated for the attack by demolishing his family’s home.

The bill still contains exemptions for US funding for the East Jerusalem Hospital Network, a chain of health care facilities offering specialty services typically not available elsewhere in the West Bank and Gaza, as well as for child vaccination programs and wastewater treatment projects. Graham and other Republican senators initially objected to the wastewater exemptions and public health exceptions, which were introduced in the House.

The two chambers reached a compromise in the spending bill by placing dollar caps on the exemptions. The exemption for childhood vaccinations would be capped at $500,000, the same amount the State Department has spent on the program in recent years. Meanwhile, the exemption for wastewater programs would be capped at $5 million.

The Trump White House was the primary driver in pushing for the wastewater project exemption. Tens of millions of cubic meters of untreated sewage emanating from the West Bank and East Jerusalem have polluted rivers in Israel as well as the Palestinian territories, a point the White House raised once again during last week’s conference on humanitarian aid for Gaza. The Trump administration has also touted water-sharing programs as a way to bring Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians together ahead of peace talks.

The compromise bill also removes the House’s sunset clause that would have ended the aid cuts after 2023. Additionally, it builds upon an escrow fund that sets aside withheld aid for two years. If the PA does not stop its martyr stipends, the final language allows the State Department to reprogram half of the withheld assistance to assistance programs that do not directly benefit the PA while the other half must be used outside of the West Bank and Gaza.

Current US law already requires a dollar-for-dollar reduction in Palestinian assistance for every dollar the PA sends to Palestinian attackers or their families. The cuts from the Taylor Force Act would count toward that deduction. The State Department has not publicly divulged how much funding it currently withholds. For its part, the PA says it spends about $350 million per year on its martyrs fund.

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/03/congress-cut-palestine-aid-west-bank-gaza.html

 

[Arkain2K]

Palestinian Authority: U.S. plan to cut aid is equivalent to "declaration of war"
By Ed Adamczyk | March 28, 2018​

A Palestinian Authority spokesman said Wednesday a move by the United States to cut financial assistance in the Middle East amounts to a declaration of war.

A reduction in U.S. aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency -- from $125 million to $65 million, unless Palestinian leaders return to negotiations with Israel -- was part of the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill signed by President Donald Trump last week.

The United States has been the UNRWA's largest contributor for decades.

Nabil Abu Rudeinah, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said the cut -- and an additional $705 million in military aid to Israel -- is "equivalent to a declaration of war on the Palestinian people."

He added that the move will heighten tensions in the Middle East, and that statements against Palestinians by U.S. officials are a violation of international law.

https://www.upi.com/Palestinians-an...t-UN-aid-by-more-than-half/8281522252066/ph2/

 

[Arkain2K]

UN gets $100 million in new funds for Palestinian aid after U.S. cuts
By Nicole Winfield | Mar 15, 2018

The United Nations received pledges Thursday of nearly $100 million in new funding for the U.N. relief agency for Palestinians after the U.S. slashed its aid, but it is still facing a nearly $350 million shortfall this year.

U.N. officials said the countries providing the new financing included Qatar, Canada, Switzerland, Turkey, New Zealand, Norway, Korea, Mexico, Slovakia, India and France.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said “an important first step was reached” at an emergency donor conference in Rome with the new pledges. But he said “a long way is in front of us” to fully fund the agency, which went into the conference facing a $446 million gap in financing this year — the worst funding crisis in its 68-year history.

“If UNRWA would not exist, if these services were not provided, the security of region would be severely undermined,” Guterres told reporters at the conference’s conclusion. “Now it is very clear, it is absolutely essential, that the extraordinary unanimity in political support to UNRWA and its activities translates itself into cash.”

The agency, the oldest and largest U.N. relief program in the Middle East, provides health care, education and social services to an estimated 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. They are the refugees or descendants of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who either fled or were forced from their homes during the war that led to Israel’s establishment in 1948.

Guterres told the conference that cutting sanitation, health care and medical services in already poverty-wracked and conflict-ridden areas “would have severe impact — a cascade of problems that could push the suffering in disastrous and unpredictable directions.”

The Trump administration announced in January it was slashing $65 million this year. But the agency said the actual cut was around $300 million because the U.S. had led the agency to believe it would provide $365 million in 2018.

The U.S. had been UNWRA’s largest donor, supplying nearly 30 percent of its budget. In announcing the cuts in January, the U.S. State Department said it wanted reforms at the agency, which Israel has strongly criticized.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, who along with his counterparts from Jordan and Sweden co-hosted the meeting, said the agency had already undertaken reform measures to streamline and rationalize its activities. But he said “there is a limit to its ability to do so” given the enormous sustained needs faced by 5 million people.

“It is vital and it is necessary to address these very basic services, but also to provide dignity for multitudes of Palestinians and to (protect) many of them from the potential threats of radicalization and terrorism,” he told reporters.

The agency’s chief, Pierre Kraehenbuel, said expectations in the region were high that donors would step up.

“The message to the Palestinian refugees has to be that they are not forgotten,” he said.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/...-new-funds-for-palestinian-aid-after-u-s-cuts