'US Plot Against Hamas' Revealed
By Al Jazeera
04/03/08 "Al Jazeera" The US plotted to overthrow the democratically
elected Hamas government
in the Palestinian territories, according to leaked do***ents obtained by
Al Jazeera.
One of the do***ents appears to show that Wa****ngton tried to persuade
Mahmoud Abbas, the
Palestinian president and leader of Fatah, to remove Hamas from power.
One do***ent, dated March 2007, states "the plan will enable the
Palestinian leader****p to be
more credible in the eyes of Israel and the others".
But, when that plan failed, the US set up an operation to fund Fatah
fighters and drive Hamas out.
In Cairo, Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, justified the
arming of Fatah, saying
the situation had called for it.
She said she had not read a re****t in Vanity Fair magazine which quoted a
former US
intelligence official said to be knowledgable of the US plans to overthrow
Hamas after it
failed to convince Abbas to dissolve the cabinet.
US sup****t
"It is very clear that Hamas is being armed. And it is very clear that
they are being armed in
part by the Iranians," Rice said on Tuesday.
"So if the answer is that if Hamas gets armed by the Iranians and nobody
helps to improve the
security capabilities of the legitimate Palestinian Authority security
forces, that's not a
very good situation."
Rice said that international forces, including the US, would therefore
continue to work with
the PA to bolster its forces to keep security in its mandated region.
Responding to Rice's comments about Iranian sup****t for Hamas, Khaled
Meshaal, the exiled Hamas
political leader, told Al Jazeera Rice was "lying".
"Their main concern is to provoke Iran," Meshaal said. "I'm saying it
again if they have proof
of this let them produce it".
"Everyone knows the origins of the Israeli weapons, it's American made
while our men are using
very simple homemade arms," he said.
The US has openly sup****ted Fatah and after Hamas seized control of Gaza
in June 2007, the US
announced an $80m funding deal for Fatah's security services in the West
Bank.
Nour Odeh, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Ramallah, said that many
Palestinians would be upset
that Fatah appeared to have played into the hands of an American foreign
policy that wanted to
make an example out of Hamas, whom the US labels a "terrorist"
organisation.
Emerging evidence
Hamas won democratic elections in January 2006, prompting Western
governments, which have
refused to engage with Hamas, to threaten to withdraw financial aid to the
Palestinians.
Left with little international sup****t, by June that year Hamas and Fatah
had agreed to form a
unity government but were unable to broker a conclusive end to factional
fighting on the
streets of Gaza.
Allegations the US sought to remove Hamas in a coup dates back to 2006,
after the group had
come to power through Palestinian elections.
The leaked do***ents include a memo sent to Fatah officials, apparently by
a senior US diplomat
in Jerusalem in November 2006, encouraging Fatah to declare a state of
emergency and take control.
The memo stated: "If Hamas does not agree [to accept a new government]
within the prescribed
time, you should make clear your intention to declare a state of emergency
and form an
emergency government explicitly committed to that platform."
The plan was ignored by Abbas who instead formed a unity government with
Hamas in 2007,
intended to bring an end to fighting between the two factions.
The unity government, agreed in February 2007 with the mediation of Saudi
Arabia, appears to
have prompted the second do***ent and a plan to oust Hamas by force, with
the US bolstering
Mohammed Dahlan, the head of Fatah's security forces.
But the unity government failed to end factional fighting and in June
Hamas seized Gaza,
dividing the Palestinian territories into Gaza and the Fatah-controlled
West Bank.
There has been no official response from Abbas regarding the do***ents.
No official US stamps or seals appear on the do***ent.
Source: Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/935DF029-9ECA-4133-BCD3-7DC26FB80E4A.htm
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