The US State Department has confirmed that President Obama has issued a formal waiver that funding the Palestinian Authority is “important to the security interests of the United States.”
The waiver, which came in the form of a memo to the Secretary of State, allows some $192 million in US aid to be restarted to the Palestinian Authority. The aid was frozen by Congress in September to punish the Palestinians for seeking independence.
White House officials say that the aid will come with demands that the Palestinian Authority accept Israel’s right to exist and unconditionally accept the Road Map for peace. The funding would then be provided to keep President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad in power.
Of course with the Palestinians planning to hold elections soon and the peace process with Israel still stalled, there will be plenty of reasons for officials to hold up aid in the future. Hamas expects to fare quite well in the next vote, and won the last one decisively before Abbas (at the behest of the US) decided to ignore the results and keep control over the PA in his faction’s hands.
Hamas did not really win decisively. They got an almont 50% plurality, but many did not vote, and many Hamas voters were doing only a protest vote againt Fatah…. Hamas should do worse in any future election.
A future election? LOL. What gives you the idea that the United Terrorists of Isreal are going to go there again?
So to get their money,($192 Million), Palestinians must accept "Israel's right to exist and to unconditionally accept the Road Map for peace". In fairness, will the Israelis have to accept "Palestine's right to exist and to unconditionally accept the Road Map for peace" so that they can get their money ($3 Billion plus,plus,plus). Of course not – it was so foolish of me to even think of that!
To Mike. Take a look at any other country's elections, especially the USA. 50% of the citizens even voting would be a miracle. You think many will vote for Obama out of love, rather than the execrable alternative Romney.
50% of a vote when there are several candidates is good; it even surprised Hamas. The immediate refusal to recognise the success by the USI and what followed was predictable. Call them terrorists, give them no chance to govern. Remember Begin and a long string of israeli leaders were terrorists first.
Who gets to claim Israel and Palestine as dependants on their income tax?
What Barack Romney is changing his mind again?