Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Driving A Wedge

Hamas is accusing the US of driving a wedge between moderates and militants. Except that the difference between moderates and militants is timetable not outcome.

A senior Hamas official on Monday accused the United States of "sowing sedition" among the Palestinians, hours after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held a rare summit with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Moussa Abu Marzouk, Hamas's deputy political leader, told a Palestinian rally at the Yarmouk refugee camp near this Syrian capital that US policy was based on "sowing sedition among the peoples and states of the region through dividing the Middle East into two camps: A moderate camp and a non-moderate one."
The problem is that the "moderates" get no western money if they unite with the militants and they really want that money.

Saudi Arabia has promised the Palestinians $1 billion a year. However, the real cash flow seldom matches their promises. Thus western money would cushion any shortfall.

1 comment:

linearthinker said...

Saudi Arabia has promised the Palestinians $1 billion a year.

We've discussed this earlier, Simon, but I'm still wondering if the Saudi promise was for $1B/year, or $1B lump sum. The only place I've seen the $1B/year quoted is Debka. Several other sources have quoted simply $1B, as if it were a lump sum deal, but haven't said that explicitly. Has anyone out there seen it quoted as an on going $1B/year elsewhere than Debka?