by Hugh Fitzgerald
While American "aid" pours into the Palestinian Authority.
After the Americans vetoed the UN Security Council resolution that would have called for an immediate “humanitarian ceasefire,” thus giving Hamas time to regroup and rearm (from weapons stocks hidden in schools, apartment buildings, mosques, and in tunnels), Mahmoud Abbas went on the attack. He condemned the U.S. for having made possible, by exercising its veto, for more “children in Gaza” to be killed. More on Abbas’ ranting denunciation can be found here: “PA President Abbas Blames U.S. for Gaza ‘Children’s Tragedy’ After UN Veto,” i24 News, December 9, 2023:
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the United States on Saturday, attributing responsibility for the tragic loss of children’s lives in Gaza to the U.S. after it vetoed a UN Security Council resolution advocating for a ceasefire in the region.
In a statement from Abbas’s office, the president criticized the American stance as aggressive and in violation of humanitarian values, directly holding the U.S. accountable for the bloodshed of Palestinian civilians, including children, women, and the elderly in Gaza, due to its unwavering support for Israel.
The deaths of civilians is a regrettable fact of modern war. But Israel does everything it can to minimize civilian casualties. It dropped 1.5 million leaflets In northern Gaza, urging residents to move southward beyond the Wadi Gaza, because the north would soon become a battlefield. The IDF also tries to warn Palestinians to leave, or move away from, civilian structures that the IDF is about to target because they contain vast stores of weapons, command-and-control centers, and Hamas fighters. The IDF text messages, telephones, leaflets, and uses the “knock-on-the-roof” technique to notify civilians of the impending attack. That is why the IDF has such a low noncombatant-to-combatant ratio — much lower than that of the American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It is not Israel, nor the U.S, by vetoing that “ceasefire,” that are causing the civilian casualties in Gaza. It is Hamas that puts so much of its weaponry, rocket launchers, and fighters, in and among civilians. Hamas uses them as human shields; it wants Palestinian civilians to be killed as much as Israel wants them not to be killed. Dead Palestinian babies,women, and the elderly are grist for Hamas’ propaganda mill.
The U.S. veto, which thwarted efforts led by UN chief Antonio Guterres and Arab nations towards an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, drew criticism.
American envoy Robert Wood dismissed the resolution as detached from reality and unlikely to effect change on the ground.
While Israel welcomed the veto, the resolution’s sponsor, the United Arab Emirates, expressed deep disappointment over the outcome….
It is Israel that should be expressing its “deep disappointment” with the UAE, which it had been drawing ever closer to since the Abraham Accords that led to normalization of ties between the Jewish state and the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco. By pushing for this resolution, the UAE is in effect trying to help Hamas be in a position to regroup, rearm, and continue to fight against the rapid IDF onslaught. That’s not what Israel expected of its fellow member of the Abraham Accords.
When Mahmoud Abbas supports Hamas atrocities — instead of deploring, he has praised its attack on October 7 — he surely deserves to be seen in a new light in Washington. And he has the gall to denounce his American benefactor for causing the “tragedy” of the deaths of children in Gaza. Isn’t it past time for the Bidenites to realize that the corrupt and despotic Abbas, now in the 18th year of his four-year term as President of the Palestinian Authority, is not a “partner for peace” with Israel, nor is he a friend to the United States, despite Washington propping him, and the people he rules over, with billions of dollars in aid?
Let this latest attack by Abbas, essentially blaming America for the deaths of Palestinian babies, prove sufficient to end American aid to Ramallah. Since Biden took office, Washington has given almost one billion dollars in aid to the Palestinian Authority. Turn off that tap. Let Abbas instead go hat in hand to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait, none of whose leaders, despite their fabulous wealth, has been a notable benefactor of the Palestinians. In 2022, for example, Saudi Arabia gave UNRWA only $27.7 million; in 2023, its last check to UNRWA was for the derisory sum of $2 million. Since 2016, the Saudis have also been cutting aid to the Palestinian Authority; that aid has gone from $174 million in 2019 to 0 in 2021, and remains at that level. Kuwait’s last donation to UNRWA was for a paltry $2 million. During the Israel-Hamas war, the UAE has provided $20 million to UNRWA for humanitarian aid to Gaza, but nothing like the hundreds of millions that are needed now, nor the tens of billions that will be needed for the reconstruction of the Strip. There is no reason to think Abbas’ implorings will have any effect on his stony-hearted “Arab brothers.”
Ending American aid for this Hamas-praising despot who has taken nearly a billion dollars from Washington since the beginning of 2021, may help to topple Abbas, whose colossal theft of aid money, and mismanagement of what he hasn’t stolen, have brought such impoverishment to the Palestinians in the West Bank. His removal may lead to better leadership of the Palestinian Authority, with such possible successors as Mohammad Dahlan, now living in forced exile in the UAE. Despite all the money it has given Ramallah, the United States has not managed to achieve better behavior from Mahmoud Abbas. Why not try cutting him, and the PA, off without a cent? That should make a deep impression on whoever succeeds the ranting rais in Ramallah.
Hugh Fitzgerald
Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/abbas-blames-america-for-deaths-of-children-in-gaza/
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