Britain calls for trust fund to help blockaded Palestinians
As I reported here, the situation in the Gaza Strip is becoming graver by the day with elementary medical services collapsing under the weight of US/EU decisions to cut all aid to the Palestinians.
Now it appears that the situation is alarming even Blair's government who have proposed using an independent trust to avert disaster in the region.
However, the US seem unwilling to budge and appear to be insisting that the Palestinian people must be punished for the "crime" of electing Hamas as their new leaders.
The transatlantic rift over how to handle a deepening economic and social crisis in Gaza and the West Bank came as 36 aid agencies joined forces here yesterday to warn that they were incapable of tackling the crisis in health, education and security left by the international community's refusal to pay salaries for essential services in Gaza.
David Shearer, the head of the UN's Office for Co-Ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said: "All the international aid agencies put together will not be able to replace the services that the Palestinian Authority provides to the people in the Gaza Strip." A confidential draft of the British proposal to use a trust fund managed by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or the UN warns that "without sufficient revenues there is a risk that the PA will not be able to deliver basic services. This could have serious consequences for living standards, political stability and, potentially, the humanitarian situation."
A Western diplomat said yesterday that the US wanted to block the proposal because it contained measures for the payment of salaries to some PA employees. While insisting that detailed proposals were for discussion at next week's Quartet meeting a US diplomat confirmed that the Bush administration was against the payment of PA salaries.
US opposition to the plan - which is believed to have Israeli support - will fuel speculation that Washington is bent on "regime change" in the PA.
This is further proof of Bush's mendacity when he claims to support democracy. These people are being starved for electing a government that the US and Israel disapprove of.
It is well worth remembering that Hamas are currently operating a cease fire against the Israelis, which Israel is not reciprocating.They have also offered a deal of "quiet for quiet" which the Israelis responded to with a rocket attack in the northern Gaza Strip which killed six people.
Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said Israel wanted to minimise the suffering of the Palestinian people. But he added: "Anything that requires working with Hamas, that legitimises Hamas or strengthens the Hamas government is a problem."
That is not strictly true. It was, after all, the Israelis who decided that the Palestinians should be put "on a diet" for having dared to elect Hamas.
The Association of International Development Agencies warned that the economic problems of Gaza - where it says 78 per cent of the population are already living under the poverty line of less than £1.10 per-person per-day - had been exacerbated by closures of cargo crossings.
Save the Children UK said 75 per cent of education and healthcare was provided by the PA. Jan Coffey, the agency's programme manager, said: "We cannot replace these core functions - and we shouldn't."
The EU should ignore the demands of the US and Israel and restore these services. It is not for us to decide who should represent the Palestinians. That's their choice and they have made it. We should live with that decision rather than engage in this savagery.
Our present policy was summed up by Dov Weisglass, an adviser to Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, earlier this year. 'The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger,' he said. The hunger pangs are supposed to encourage the Palestinians to force Hamas to change its attitude towards Israel or force Hamas out of government.
Terrorising a civilian population in order to produce change in a government's direction is an almost textbook definition of terrorism. And that is what we are currently engaged in.
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