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Y-Net News – June 20, 2007
Bush pledges to increase US funding to Israel
Yitzhak Benhorin
WASHINGTON – In a White House statement issued following Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's visit to Washington, President George W. Bush pledged to increase US military aid to Israel over the course of the next decade.
An American team will land in Israel in July to finalize the deal. Israel currently receives an annual $2.4 billion in military aid.
"I am strongly committed to Israel's security and viability as a Jewish state, and to the maintenance of its qualitative military edge," said Bush in the statement.
Olmert and Bush met in private for a lengthy three-hour meeting in the White House, focused on the ongoing negotiations to increase US aid to Israel.
"During our meeting today, I told Prime Minister Olmert that I am committed to reaching a new ten-year agreement that will give Israel the increased assistance it requires to meet the new threats and challenges it faces," said the president.
Talks between groups of Israeli and American professionals over the past few months reviewed Israel's increased military spenditure in the face of the growing Iranian threat. The new talks were launched during Olmert's previous visit to Washington.
Following the Camp David Accords Israel began receiving an annual budget of $3 billion from the US, including $1.8 in military aid and $1.2 in civilian aid….
The deal Bush seeks to finalize would commence in 2009 and would remain valid for 10 years…
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3415479,00.html
Associated Press – June 20, 2007
Carter blasts US policy on Palestinians
Shawn Pogatchnik
Former President Jimmy Carter accused the U.S., Israel and the European Union on Tuesday of seeking to divide the Palestinian people by reopening aid to President Mahmoud Abbas' new government in the West Bank while denying the same to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who was addressing a human rights conference in Ireland, also said the Bush administration's refusal to accept Hamas' 2006 election victory was "criminal."
Carter said Hamas, besides winning a fair and democratic mandate that should have entitled it to lead the Palestinian government, had proven itself to be far more organized in its political and military showdowns with Abbas' moderate Fatah movement.
Hamas fighters routed Fatah in their violent takeover of the Gaza Strip last week. The split prompted Abbas to dissolve the power-sharing government with his rivals in Hamas and set up a Fatah-led administration to govern the West Bank.
Carter said the consensus of the U.S., Israel and the EU to start funneling aid to Abbas' new government in the West Bank but continue blocking Hamas in the Gaza Strip represented an "effort to divide Palestinians into two peoples."
"All efforts of the international community should be to reconcile the two, but there's no effort from the outside to bring the two together," he said…..
Far from encouraging Hamas' move into parliamentary politics, Carter said the U.S. and Israel, with European Union acquiescence, sought to subvert the outcome by shunning Hamas and helping Abbas to keep the reins of political and military power.
"That action was criminal," he said in a news conference after his speech.
"The United States and Israel decided to punish all the people in Palestine and did everything they could to deter a compromise between Hamas and Fatah," he said.
Carter said the U.S. and others supplied the Fatah-controlled security forces in Gaza with vastly superior weaponry in hopes they would "conquer Hamas in Gaza" — but Hamas routed Fatah in the fighting last week because of its "superior skills and discipline.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070619/ap_on_re_eu/carter_us_palestinians
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