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Israeli 'ruler-in-waiting' plans to starve Hamas
She is already being spoken of as an Israeli leader in waiting. Today the Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni brings to London the campaign to destabilise the incoming Hamas Palestinian government by starving it of cash.
Israel's policy - described by a spokesman as putting "the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger" - has left London feeling squeamish. Tony Blair and Jack Straw will today undoubtedly show solidarity with Israel, saying Britain is not in the business of funding terrorists. But in private there is anguish that the policy will bring malnutrition to innocent Palestinians and punish them for taking part in a democratic election. The Palestinians are completely dependent on foreign aid for their survival and Israel's campaign to put 3.6 million people on starvation rations is foreboding.
The EU announced on Monday that it would provide €120m (£85m) in emergency assistance to prevent financial collapse, but has kept silent on what it will do once Hamas takes office. Britain is encouraging the EU to pay salaries directly and bypass Hamas.
Ms Livni's hardline views were displayed earlier this week when she said that the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was "irrelevant" and could not be permitted to become "a fig leaf for a terrorist entity".
US policy is to prop up Mr Abbas at all costs and Israel's interim ruler Ehud Olmert quickly stepped in to clarify Ms Livni's remarks, saying he hoped the Palestinian President would stay in office.
Ms Livni, 47, has made a considerable political journey from her early support for a Greater Israel to realisation that the country cannot remain a democracy while occupying Palestinian lands and ruling over a population that despises it. A teenager born to a nationalist family, she was nearly arrested for violently protesting against Henry Kissinger's ill-fated shuttle diplomacy. Despite her closely held dream of a Greater Israel, she maintains that she has long been a centrist on the national question. Raised in a hardline Likud household, Ms Livni has an ideological pedigree that is hard to top.
More
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article348712.ece
The EU announced on Monday that it would provide €120m (£85m) in emergency assistance to prevent financial collapse, but has kept silent on what it will do once Hamas takes office. Britain is encouraging the EU to pay salaries directly and bypass Hamas.
Ms Livni's hardline views were displayed earlier this week when she said that the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was "irrelevant" and could not be permitted to become "a fig leaf for a terrorist entity".
US policy is to prop up Mr Abbas at all costs and Israel's interim ruler Ehud Olmert quickly stepped in to clarify Ms Livni's remarks, saying he hoped the Palestinian President would stay in office.
Ms Livni, 47, has made a considerable political journey from her early support for a Greater Israel to realisation that the country cannot remain a democracy while occupying Palestinian lands and ruling over a population that despises it. A teenager born to a nationalist family, she was nearly arrested for violently protesting against Henry Kissinger's ill-fated shuttle diplomacy. Despite her closely held dream of a Greater Israel, she maintains that she has long been a centrist on the national question. Raised in a hardline Likud household, Ms Livni has an ideological pedigree that is hard to top.
More
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article348712.ece
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The U.S. will continue providing humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people but Washington will not give any financial help to a Hamas-led government, David Welch, the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, told Congress Thursday. "We have not, do not, and will not provide assistance to Hamas - in government or out of government," he said.
Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), a survivor of the Holocaust, said he was sickened by contacts between Hamas and countries such as Russia and Turkey. "We should make clear that we strongly oppose meeting with Hamas," said Lantos. "It is sickening hypocrisy." "The blood of dozens of Americans and hundreds of Israeli men, women, and children is on those hands," he said. (Reuters)