IS THERE REALLY A SHIFT IN WASHINGTON'S MIDDLE EAST POLICY?

The Israelis should be very wary of any Washington moves because a shift away from the Palestinians runs counter to Obama’s declared intention of reaching out to the Muslim world.

PALESTINIANS FEEL THE CHILL FROM WASHINGTON
Abbas may lose slice of aid by refusing to sit down with Israel

DEBKA-Net-Weekly
December 31, 2010

Palestinian leaders complain they are confronted with more than one Washington reversal:

1. The Obama administration is unwilling to publicly endorse the 2007 pledge by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for a future Palestinian state to rise within boundaries '"very close to the 1967 borders" in a final-status accord with Israel.

2. The US president's former national security adviser Gen. Jim Jones promised that an American or a combined US-NATO force would secure the Palestinian state's borders with Israel and Jordan. Washington now points to the mounting security risks posed by Iran as a compelling reason for Israeli military elements to remain on the West Bank as part of the international force.

3. Washington insists that Abbas must stop pushing for a UN resolution on Palestinian statehood within 1967 borders and urging Latin American governments to extend recognition, after it was obtained from Uruguay, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay.

The Palestinians therefore feel they are on shifting ground.

But they are realistic, a senior US diplomat told our Washington sources: They know that opposition to the new administration policy may cost them dear in the form of a slowdown in the flow of aid funds to the PA.

Holding back just half a billion dollars out of the $3 billion allotted them every year would bring down the regime headed by Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

Another American bureaucrat was even blunter. Expressing Washington's impatience with the Palestinian Authority, he said: The Ramallah regime is flimsier than a house of cards; it’s made out of greenbacks. When the dollars and euros stop rolling in, the house will fall down - and no one there wants to see that happen.

Despite the signs of impatience in Washington, this sentiment is not the last word on administration policy. It is quite possibly an arm-twisting exercise to force Abbas' return to the negotiating table with Israel.

But if he continues to dig his heels in against the talks and stands by his demand for construction to be frozen first on the West Bank and in Jerusalem – a bargaining position derided as inept by Saudi Arabia, Syria and other Arab regimes - the Americans may well lose patience altogether and make the exercise a permanent feature of their new policy.