Wednesday, March 21, 2007

The devil's in the detail's




The devil's

exerpt ;

In recent days differences in Israeli and US policy have emerged in two main areas. First, Israel is completely boycotting the new Palestinian Authority government, while the US will meet - and indeed the US consul General in Jerusalem Jacob Walles has already met - with non-Hamas members of the government with whom the US has had contact in the past.
Secondly, while the cabinet on Sunday ruled out "political horizon" talks with Abbas as a result of the new government, and wants to limit future Olmert-Abbas talks to security and humanitarian issues, Rice has said she believes "political horizon" talks should continue.
Meanwhile the Quartet, in a statement issued Wednesday evening, expressed its "strong support" for Rice's efforts to further facilitate discussions with Abbas and Olmert "with the aim of defining more clearly the political horizon for the establishment of a Palestinian state and an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
Testifying Wednesday before a House subcommittee controlling foreign aid, Rice said, "I think it is extremely important to show American commitment to a political horizon so that the Palestinian people can see their future rests with moderate forces like [Abbas], not with those forces that are extreme."
And at a press conference in Washington earlier this week, Rice said that in her upcoming meeting with Abbas she was going to "continue to try to work on bettering the lives of the Palestinian people as well as trying to push forward on a political horizon so that the Palestinian people can see the pathway to the establishment of a Palestinian state."
Rice is expected not only to talk to Abbas about these issues, but also to press Olmert to talk with Abbas about them as well, and not only limit their discussions to day-to-day humanitarian and security issues.
But in a clear indication that backing "political horizon" talks, and meeting with non-Hamas ministers, is not tantamount to a seismic shift in US policy, the Bush administration announced Wednesday that it will reduce a proposed $86 million security assistance package to the PA government in an effort to see that none of the money ends up with forces loyal to Hamas.
Rice said Wednesday she would soon send Congress a revised package that will ensure only security elements loyal to Abbas receive the aid. "I have reformulated the plan, it's almost ready to come to you," Rice told lawmakers. "It will request less money, precisely because some of the money I would have requested I could not fully account for." She did not provide specifics of the reduction but said the new plan would leave intact a "firewall" aimed at keeping the money away from Hamas.

Notice how she left out how much $ was still going to the UNITED Abbas Hamas terrorist's ?

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