Palestinian heads attack aid cut
The US and EU have gone ahead with cuts in financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority, despite warnings that cuts of this scale may result in a humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip.
Prime Minister Ismail Haniya called the decisions hasty and unjust and warned that such moves would not serve the interests of the Middle East.As I reported here, this is simply a recipe for disaster, and a rejection by the west of the Palestinians' democratically elected government.
President Mahmoud Abbas described the aid withdrawal as unacceptable and said ordinary Palestinians would suffer.
David Shearer, head of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told Foreign Ministry officials that if there is no significant change in the situation, Gaza will face a humanitarian crisis as bad as the one in Kosovo.This policy has been implemented before any of us have had a chance to know what the new Hamas government are actually proposing to do. It is the worst kind of grandstanding, and it will do nothing to bring peace to the region.
A report by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) warns of a lack of basic food supplies due to the frequent closures of the Karni crossing that are preventing goods from reaching Gaza from Egypt. The report also said there has been a significant increase in the number of hungry people since financial aid has been halted.
World Bank statistics show that if there is no dramatic change, 75 percent of Palestinians will be below the poverty line within two years. The current rate is 56 percent, compared to 22 percent in 2000 .
It will simply punish the Palestinians for exercising the democratic rights that we say we are keen to export. It's shameful.
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Thank you for commenting, but you have got the IRA story the wrong way round. There was no unconditional end to violence before the talks began.
Thatcher's stance was nearer to the one you are advocating and it got us nowhere.
It was Major who started the talks and, to have made them conditional on an end of violence, would have been to effectively hand a veto to nutters like the Real IRA.
So, if you are serious about following the successful British model vis a vis the IRA, then you talk without the condition of a prerequisite ending of violence.
As the talks bore fruit, the violence diminished.
And, if you are serious about peace in the Middle East, Hamas are the perfect people to talk to.
For too long Israel demanded of Arafat an ending of violence that it was not within his power to provide.
Now, with Hamas, Israel have the opportunity to talk to the organ grinder rather than the monkey.
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