Israel Matzav

Obama's clueless Gaza policy

In June, President Obama introduced legislation to give $400 million in aid to Gaza. Mark Silverberg explains why that's a bad idea.

The problem with his strategy (if that is what it is) is that it fails to consider the nature of the Hamas regime and the broader implications that arise from empowering a genocidal, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, anti-democratic, repressive, pro-Iranian organization on the southern border of a democratic ally in the Middle East.

Some $10B has been spent globally in the last decade on the Palestinians, making them the largest per capita recipients of foreign aid (with the exception of the Republic of Congo); yet places like Gaza remain as pro-terrorist as ever. Further, as Hamas is a designated foreign terrorist organization (FTO) that controls the distribution of all goods entering Gaza, America's providing humanitarian aid through non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Gaza may now constitute a violation of the "material support" provisions of the Patriot Act, as such aid (according to the recent Supreme Court decision in Holder vs. Humanitarian Law Project) would "free up" other resources for Hamas to finance its other less pleasent goals -- as well as adding legitimacy to Hamas's attempts to recruit and raise additional funds to further these objectives. By sustaining Hamas in power, this aid package may not only be illegal, but can only undermine any future ability the Palestinian national movement may have of reaching a compromise with Israel.

More disturbing is the recent leak from a senior Hamas official to the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper suggesting that this pledge of aid to Gaza is the forerunner to an even more dangerous planned Obama initiative in the coming months -- one that would remove Hamas from America's designated foreign terrorist organization (FTO) list.

On June 16th, a Washington-based Arabic newspaper quoted a senior official as saying that an American envoy is scheduled to meet with Hamas representatives in an Arab country and hand them a letter from the Obama administration. According to the report, Obama believes -- wrongly -- that he has no choice other than to deal with Hamas, due to its influence in the Arab and Islamic world. Given that John Brennan, Obama's Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, has been reaching out to "moderates" in Hezbollah, it would hardly be surprising to believe that the Administration is now talking to Hamas.

Apparently, Obama is not alone in this belief. U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) seems to have bought into it as well. Mark Perry, writing in Foreign Policy (June 30th) notes: "While it is anathema to broach the subject of engaging militant groups like Hezbollah and Hamas in official Washington circles (to say nothing of Israel), in a 'Red Team' report issued on May 7th and entitled 'Managing Hezbollah and Hamas,' senior CENTCOM intelligence officers question the current U.S. policy of isolating and marginalizing the two movements."

Could this be an item in the lame duck session of Congress discussed in an earlier post? Recall that in 1988, the Reagan administration recognized the PLO after Jewish New York lawyer Rita Hauser coaxed Arafat into saying that he accepted Israel's 'right to exist' (except that he didn't). Could it happen again? Could Israel suffer from a lame duck President or Congress?

What could go wrong?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:56 PM