Report: US State Dept. official to meet Haniyeh

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JPost.com Staff, THE JERUSALEM POST

Mar. 24, 2007

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As US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice conducts meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials this week, another senior official in the US State Department is expected to meet secretly with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, the Saudi newspaper Al-Biyan reported Saturday.

According to the report, Saudi Arabia initiated the meeting together with a Hamas official in the PA.

Palestinian PM accuses Rice of bringing 'perilous vision' to Mideast

Last update - 20:48 15/01/2007

By Aluf Benn and Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondents, and the Associated Press

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas on Monday accused U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of bringing a "perilous vision" to the region, shortly after she announced plans to join an Israeli-Palestinian summit in the coming weeks.

Rice, who is in the Middle East in hopes of restarting peace efforts, is trying to "sedate" the Palestinians with promises of easing Israeli restrictions while really serving Israel's interests, said Haniyeh.

"She is bringing a perilous vision that everyone should be wary of," Haniyeh said. "It seems obvious the Bush administration will not exert any pressures on Israel to offer any substantial concessions to the Palestinian people."

Rice is seeking to bolster the moderate Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, in his standoff against Hamas. Those efforts include more than $80 million in assistance to Abbas' Presidential Guard.

Haniyeh called the aid to Abbas "dangerous" and said it would only worsen recent infighting between Hamas and Abbas' Fatah movement.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday that while he was in favor of a three-way summit, bilateral talks between Israel and the Palestinians must also continue.

U.S. officials said after Olmert's three-hour meeting with Rice on Monday that the two had agreed to hold a three-way summit with Abbas in the near future.

Olmert said that the summit would "consider relations between us and the Palestinians," but added that "there is no doubt that we must - at the same time - also continue the bilateral meetings between us and them."

Senior Palestine Liberation Organization negotiator Saeb Erekat said Abbas was ready to attend the summit "in principle," but details about where and when the summit would be held were not worked out.

Erekat said Rice is reflecting a serious and genuine interest in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. "What she said is that President Bush, in the remaining two years of his office, has no more important priority than to leave office with a Palestinian state alongside Israel. He wants to see his vision realized," he said.

A senior U.S. official in Rice's delegation said the "trilateral meeting" would be aimed at "having a conversation about the political horizon leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state."

Olmert's spokeswoman, Miri Eisin, said no date or place had been set for the summit.

The U.S. official said the meeting would likely take place in the next three or four weeks somewhere in the Middle East.

Speaking to his Kadima faction after meeting with Rice, Olmert said that the internationally brokered road map continues to be the basis for the peace process, and that there was "no substitute for bilateral negotiations" with the Palestinians.

He said that if a Palestinian unity government made up of Hamas and Fatah agreed to accept the three key international demands for recognition of Israel, the renunciation of violence and acceptance of previous accords, then negotiations could be possible.

No details of the talks between Olmert and Rice were formally released, but the prime minister had been expected to tell the secretary of state that Israel would take "unprecedented steps" vis-a-vis the Palestinians, if the Hamas-led PA government met the criteria spelled out by the Quartet.

The meeting between Olmert and Rice was also called to discuss ways to boost Abbas' standing, as a means to further the diplomatic process between Israel and the Palestinians.

The prime minister was to stress that his is a "peace government" but without the Palestinians meeting the three international preconditions it is impossible to more forward.

Olmert was also expected to warn that the establishment of a Palestinian government of national unity, which does not adopt the preconditions set by the Quartet, will bring an end to Israel's efforts to support Abbas.

On Sunday, Shin Bet security service chief Yuval Diskin told the cabinet that the violence between Fatah and Hamas, which led to the deaths of 20 people last week, was considered by the Palestinians as crossing a "red line." He added that this could result in greater flexibility on the part of the factions in agreeing on a government of national unity.

Political sources in Jerusalem said on Sunday that "the Palestinians are now talking about the division of ministerial portfolios in the new government, without committing themselves to accept the Quartet preconditions."

Meanwhile, in an interview on Channel 10 on Sunday, Rice said the road map must be implemented and there is no reason to skip over any of its stages. Her comment was in part referring to an earlier rejection by Abbas of the idea that the second stage of the road map - calling for a Palestinian state based on temporary borders - was a realistic possibility at this stage.

She also said that in her talks with Abbas on Sunday, he had reiterated his wish and willingness to carry out Palestinian obligations laid out in the road map.

Following their meeting in Ramallah on Sunday, Abbas announced that he would not agree to a Palestinian state within temporary borders, as is proposed in the second stage of the road map. "We do not consider this possibility a realistic one that we can build on," the Palestinian leader said.

Other Palestinian officials also voiced their opposition to such an arrangement, saying that it would stymie progress toward a final settlement.

Rice said that the U.S. intends to deepen its involvement in the peace process, aiming to restart it on the basis of the road map.

There have been reports in recent days that a summit of the leaderships of both Fatah and Hamas is being organized in Damascus, with the specific aim of finalizing an agreement for a national unity government. Abbas denied that any such meeting is scheduled to take place.

According to the reports, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Sheikh Mohammed Akef, was instrumental in convincing Khaled Meshal, the head of Hamas' political bureau, and Abbas to meet in order to iron out their differences.

Haniyeh: 20-year truce in exchange for state

Palestinian prime minister delivers speech on internal issues, accuses Abbas of isolating government. However, he also conveys message to Israel: If Palestinian state is established within 1967 borders, Hamas will aggress to long-term hudna.

Ali Waked

Hamas is ready for a ceasefire with Israel if a Palestinian state is established, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas said in a speech delivered Tuesday afternoon.

Haniyeh's speech dealt mainly with internal issues. He responded to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' call for elections in the Palestinian Authority and called for unity in the struggle against the occupation.

However, he also called for the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. If this takes place, he clarified, he would be ready for a long-term ceasefire, which may even last 20 years.

--MORE--

Haniyeh does further damage to a forlorn Abbas, scoring major funding from Iran for the Palestinian people, while USrael starves them

Beyond imagination

Khaled Amayreh in the West Bank

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While Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is still counting on the US and the EU -- and probably Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as well -- to "strengthen" his position against the Hamas-led government, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has been scoring success after success in his extended tour of a number of Arab and Muslim states in the region.

On Tuesday, Haniyeh wrapped up a three-day visit to Tehran during which he held high-profile meetings with top Iranian officials, including Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The meetings were more than just courteous encounters between heads of an emerging regional superpower and the leader of a beleaguered government that the US and Israel have been hell-bent on scuttling for its refusal to bow to Zionist- colonialist diktat.

In fact, Iran decided to give Haniyeh more than he had ever dreamt of. In the words of one Palestinian observer, the Iranians treated Haniyeh like a second prodigal son (the first being Hizbullah). On Monday, the Palestinian prime minister, who had earlier referred to Iran as "our strategic depth", termed his visit "historical and very, very successful". "We reached our goals on this visit. We found all the love possible to give to the Palestinian people," Haniyeh said during a brief press conference at the Mehrabad airport in Tehran.

Haniyeh's words, while not completely void of rhetorical indulgence, are more or less accurate. The Iranian government, taking advantage of skyrocketing oil prices, pledged to give the Palestinians a generous package of financial assistance, urgently needed given the eight-month-old harsh blockade imposed on the Palestinian people by the US, the EU, as well as a number of Arab regimes.

According to Haniyeh, the Iranian donation will include a direct cash payment to the Palestinian government of approximately $100 million. In addition, Iran will pay the unpaid salaries of employees of three ministries (Labour, Welfare and Culture) as well as six-month stipends to the estimated 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners languishing in Israeli jails. Iran also agreed to pay for the next six months a stipend of $100 a month to 100,000 Palestinian civil servants and the same for 3,000 Palestinian fishermen.

Furthermore, Iran also agreed to build a cultural centre and rebuild some 1,000 demolished houses at a cost of $10,000 per house. Finally, the Islamic republic agreed to purchase 300 new cars for the Palestinian government and purchase Palestinian olive oil at a special higher premium.

According to Haniyeh, Iran's supreme spiritual leader, Ali Khamenei, whom he met Sunday, personally approved the financial aid.

In short, Haniyeh's visit to Iran appears successful "beyond even the wildest dreams" of Hamas, as one of Haniyeh's political advisors put it during a telephone interview with Al-Ahram Weekly Tuesday. The unexpected generosity of Shia Iran towards a Sunni Islamist movement should be viewed as a rebuff and direct challenge to American hegemony in the region.

The United States, along with Israel and some Arab regimes such as Jordan, has been trying to strangle the Hamas- led government, employing some of the most draconian and sinister measures yet seen, such as bullying Palestinian and Arab banks to refuse to service the government, including transferring Arab and Muslim aid money from abroad into the impoverished and cash-strapped occupied territories.

This harsh and cruel blockade was aimed at achieving two mains goals: First to induce an implosion inside Palestinian society aimed at triggering a popular revolution against Hamas. This goal has not been reached as most Palestinians continue to blame the US and Israel, not Hamas, for their plight. Indeed, Hamas's popularity has not suffered significantly, evidenced in PA reluctance to hold early general elections in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem as a means of overcoming the crisis.

The second goal was to discourage Islamist or even Islamic experiments elsewhere in the Muslim world by giving the impression that Islamists in power only bring poverty and hardship to the masses.

However, unlike Fatah's leader Abbas, who some Palestinians accuse of adopting a "feed me today, and kill me tomorrow," political modus operandi, Hamas has been successfully manoeuvring itself out of the treacherous minefield of the harsh blockade, adopting another adage: "I will suffer today so that I may live tomorrow."

Haniyeh's success in Tehran is added to earlier achievements during his visit to Qatar last week when Emir Hamad Ibn Khalifa Al-Thani pledged to pay the salaries of more than 40,000 Palestinian teachers and if necessary cover payments for workers in the public health sector.

According to Hamas officials, Haniyeh's next destination will be Riyadh where he will undoubtedly press his Saudi hosts to at least match Iranian generosity and "adopt" a number of Palestinian ministries for six months or one year. If the Saudis respond positively, this will be the final nail in the coffin of the American-led, Israeli- enforced blockade.

Indeed, it would be politically and ideologically expedient for the Saudi government, which views itself as the ultimate custodian and guardian of Sunni Islam, to give Haniyeh all the assistance and aid he seeks since rebuffing him would push Hamas (and probably the bulk of Palestinians as well) further towards the Iranian-Syrian-Hizbullah axis.

At a loss with regard to their quagmire in Iraq, and given their conspicuous inability to get Israel to abandon its colonialist schemes, the United States seems unable to present any viable and practical plan that would convince the masses, whether in Palestine, Saudi Arabia, or Egypt for that matter, to give the "peace process" one last chance.

It is even likely that powerless and frustrated allies like Abbas will sooner rather than later understand the foolishness of counting on the present American administration. One Fatah official close to Abbas this week lamented that Americans "have pushed us to this dismal situation".

"They keep saying they want to strengthen the moderates and strengthen Abbas while at the same time they can't even get Ehud Olmert to remove a single roadblock in the West Bank. So why would our people believe Abbas when he tells them to trust America? At least the Iranians are helping us, while the Americans and Israelis are starving us."

Caption: Holding up a banner that reads in Arabic, "Who is the killer" referring to the assassination of three young siblings Monday in Gaza

C a p t i o n 2: Holding up a banner that reads in Arabic, "Who is the killer" referring to the assassination of three young siblings Monday in Gaza

© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved

Al-Ahram Weekly Online

Haniya scoring major funding from Iran for the Palestinian peopleeh does further damage to a forlorn Abbas, while USrael starves the Palestinians

Beyond imagination

Khaled Amayreh in the West Bank

---

While Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is still counting on the US and the EU -- and probably Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as well -- to "strengthen" his position against the Hamas-led government, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has been scoring success after success in his extended tour of a number of Arab and Muslim states in the region.

On Tuesday, Haniyeh wrapped up a three-day visit to Tehran during which he held high-profile meetings with top Iranian officials, including Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The meetings were more than just courteous encounters between heads of an emerging regional superpower and the leader of a beleaguered government that the US and Israel have been hell-bent on scuttling for its refusal to bow to Zionist- colonialist diktat.

In fact, Iran decided to give Haniyeh more than he had ever dreamt of. In the words of one Palestinian observer, the Iranians treated Haniyeh like a second prodigal son (the first being Hizbullah). On Monday, the Palestinian prime minister, who had earlier referred to Iran as "our strategic depth", termed his visit "historical and very, very successful". "We reached our goals on this visit. We found all the love possible to give to the Palestinian people," Haniyeh said during a brief press conference at the Mehrabad airport in Tehran.

Haniyeh's words, while not completely void of rhetorical indulgence, are more or less accurate. The Iranian government, taking advantage of skyrocketing oil prices, pledged to give the Palestinians a generous package of financial assistance, urgently needed given the eight-month-old harsh blockade imposed on the Palestinian people by the US, the EU, as well as a number of Arab regimes.

According to Haniyeh, the Iranian donation will include a direct cash payment to the Palestinian government of approximately $100 million. In addition, Iran will pay the unpaid salaries of employees of three ministries (Labour, Welfare and Culture) as well as six-month stipends to the estimated 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners languishing in Israeli jails. Iran also agreed to pay for the next six months a stipend of $100 a month to 100,000 Palestinian civil servants and the same for 3,000 Palestinian fishermen.

Furthermore, Iran also agreed to build a cultural centre and rebuild some 1,000 demolished houses at a cost of $10,000 per house. Finally, the Islamic republic agreed to purchase 300 new cars for the Palestinian government and purchase Palestinian olive oil at a special higher premium.

According to Haniyeh, Iran's supreme spiritual leader, Ali Khamenei, whom he met Sunday, personally approved the financial aid.

In short, Haniyeh's visit to Iran appears successful "beyond even the wildest dreams" of Hamas, as one of Haniyeh's political advisors put it during a telephone interview with Al-Ahram Weekly Tuesday. The unexpected generosity of Shia Iran towards a Sunni Islamist movement should be viewed as a rebuff and direct challenge to American hegemony in the region.

The United States, along with Israel and some Arab regimes such as Jordan, has been trying to strangle the Hamas- led government, employing some of the most draconian and sinister measures yet seen, such as bullying Palestinian and Arab banks to refuse to service the government, including transferring Arab and Muslim aid money from abroad into the impoverished and cash-strapped occupied territories.

This harsh and cruel blockade was aimed at achieving two mains goals: First to induce an implosion inside Palestinian society aimed at triggering a popular revolution against Hamas. This goal has not been reached as most Palestinians continue to blame the US and Israel, not Hamas, for their plight. Indeed, Hamas's popularity has not suffered significantly, evidenced in PA reluctance to hold early general elections in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem as a means of overcoming the crisis.

The second goal was to discourage Islamist or even Islamic experiments elsewhere in the Muslim world by giving the impression that Islamists in power only bring poverty and hardship to the masses.

However, unlike Fatah's leader Abbas, who some Palestinians accuse of adopting a "feed me today, and kill me tomorrow," political modus operandi, Hamas has been successfully manoeuvring itself out of the treacherous minefield of the harsh blockade, adopting another adage: "I will suffer today so that I may live tomorrow."

Haniyeh's success in Tehran is added to earlier achievements during his visit to Qatar last week when Emir Hamad Ibn Khalifa Al-Thani pledged to pay the salaries of more than 40,000 Palestinian teachers and if necessary cover payments for workers in the public health sector.

According to Hamas officials, Haniyeh's next destination will be Riyadh where he will undoubtedly press his Saudi hosts to at least match Iranian generosity and "adopt" a number of Palestinian ministries for six months or one year. If the Saudis respond positively, this will be the final nail in the coffin of the American-led, Israeli- enforced blockade.

Indeed, it would be politically and ideologically expedient for the Saudi government, which views itself as the ultimate custodian and guardian of Sunni Islam, to give Haniyeh all the assistance and aid he seeks since rebuffing him would push Hamas (and probably the bulk of Palestinians as well) further towards the Iranian-Syrian-Hizbullah axis.

At a loss with regard to their quagmire in Iraq, and given their conspicuous inability to get Israel to abandon its colonialist schemes, the United States seems unable to present any viable and practical plan that would convince the masses, whether in Palestine, Saudi Arabia, or Egypt for that matter, to give the "peace process" one last chance.

It is even likely that powerless and frustrated allies like Abbas will sooner rather than later understand the foolishness of counting on the present American administration. One Fatah official close to Abbas this week lamented that Americans "have pushed us to this dismal situation".

"They keep saying they want to strengthen the moderates and strengthen Abbas while at the same time they can't even get Ehud Olmert to remove a single roadblock in the West Bank. So why would our people believe Abbas when he tells them to trust America? At least the Iranians are helping us, while the Americans and Israelis are starving us."

Caption: Holding up a banner that reads in Arabic, "Who is the killer" referring to the assassination of three young siblings Monday in Gaza

C a p t i o n 2: Holding up a banner that reads in Arabic, "Who is the killer" referring to the assassination of three young siblings Monday in Gaza

© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved

Al-Ahram Weekly Online