Send a petition to the House and Senate opposing Anti-Palestinian legislation!
The
unexpected victory of Hamas in the Palestinian legislative election has
prompted
the Bush Administration to reevaluate its relationship with the
Palestinian
Authority (PA). Some Members of Congress, however, have gone much
further than
this and have used the election result as a pretext to advance their
extreme
anti-Palestinian agenda.
Of
the several
anti-Palestinian resolutions introduced by Members of Congress in the
aftermath
of the legislative
election, the most far-reaching is H.R.4681, the Palestinian
Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006, introduced by Rep. Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL)
on February 1, 2006.
The
central provision of this
resolution would prohibit the United
States
from providing direct assistance to the PA unless the President
certifies that
it has fulfilled a long list of subjective and ambiguous conditions.
Current law already prohibits the United
States
from providing direct assistance to the PA unless the President signs a
national security waiver.
However,
this resolution goes
far beyond reiterating the current U.S. ban on direct assistance to the
PA; it
also calls for many troubling provisions that would punish and isolate
the
Palestinian people for exercising their right to vote, including:
*
Restricting humanitarian
aid. Through
its military occupation of the West Bank
and Gaza Strip,
Israel
has
de-developed the Palestinian economy by destroying infrastructure and
agricultural lands; by inhibiting the development of internal trade
through
walls, checkpoints, roadblocks, closures, and curfews; and by
preventing
external trade through border closings. U.S. humanitarian assistance,
overseen by USAID and implemented by certified non-governmental
organizations
(NGO’s), is not only essential to preventing the complete
collapse of the
Palestinian economy under these difficult conditions imposed by Israel;
it is
also morally necessary since the United States supports these Israeli
policies
through $3 billion of direct military and economic assistance every
year. Even though it contains a waiver for certain humanitarian aid
categories, this
resolution places US
assistance to NGO’s in Palestinian territories in the same
category as aid to
the PA.
*
Prohibiting official
Palestinian diplomacy or representation in the United
States. Restricting
Palestinian diplomacy in
the United States
would be counter-productive to efforts to promote dialogue and a just
peace,
further eroding the claim that the United
States is an
“honest broker.” This
resolution would deny visas to PA
representatives, restrict the movement of Palestinian diplomats at the
UN, and
shut down the PLO office in Washington,
DC.
*
Targeting the UN for
supporting Palestinian human rights. The
Palestinians have been denied their human rights
through Israeli dispossession and military occupation. The United
Nations
maintains bodies like the Division for Palestinian Rights to advocate
for the
realization of Palestinian human rights. This resolution seeks to
defund these bodies by calling
on the United
States to withhold UN dues
in proportion to
the percentage of the UN budget that funds these bodies.
*
Denying Palestinians the
ability to receive assistance through international financial
institutions. The
World Bank has been working with the PA to rehabilitate the Gaza Strip
since Israel’s
unilateral “disengagement” from it in 2005. Funds
are needed urgently to
rebuild thousands of homes that Israel
destroyed there. The reconstruction of the Gaza Strip could be in
jeopardy if this bill is passed. It contains a provision instructing
the United
States, which has a
controlling vote at the
World Bank, to vote against such funding.
The
United
States says that it is
committed to promoting
democracy. If that is indeed the case, it is inappropriate for Members
of
Congress to advance legislation that would punish and isolate people
through
draconian economic and diplomatic measures when the result of an
election is
not to the liking of the United
States.
