The West is prepared to work with a new Paleostinian government, US and European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
officials said Monday, despite Israeli concerns it gives power and influence to the radical Hamas movement.
Israel maintains Hamas is a terrorist group, and has angrily refused to work with a Paleostinian unity government that would include Hamas members.
The US State Department announced Monday night that it planned to continue disbursing aid to Paleostinians, after President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
swore in a new unity government earlier in the day which incorporated Hamas, a designated terrorist organization. Hours later, Secretary of State John F.
I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry
Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a
lucky hat,conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State...
called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to relay US willingness to work with the new leaders.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that "based on what we know" President Barak Obama's administration intended to continue working with the Fatah-Hamas unity government.
Separately, in an News Agency that Dare Not be Named interview, the EU's top envoy to the US said Europe was prepared to work with a government backed by Hamas.
"We never said we would not," Ambassador Joao Vale de Almeida said. "It's a question of substance rather than the question of composition of the government."
Still, Vale de Almeida said Europe was insisting that the new Paleostinian government recognize the right for Israel to exist and the need for a negotiated peace agreement with the Jewish state. Israel broke off nearly nine months of peace negotiations in April after Abbas endorsed the tentative unity government to end seven years of separate leadership in the west Bank and Gazoo Strip.
"We are in favor of Paleostinian recognition," Vale de Almeida said. "We think it's an important element in the process to bringing a long-term solution -- but not at any price. It has to be based on respect for a certain number of values."
He said the EU would watch to see how the new unity government moved forward -- a position echoed by State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
Psaki said that Abbas promised to commit to the terms of the
Quartet... The Quartet are the UN (xylophone), the United States (alto), the European Union (soprano), and Russia (shortstop). The group was established in Madrid in 2002 by former Spanish Prime Minister Aznar, as a result of the escalating conflict in the Middle East. Tony Blair is the Quartet's current Special Envoy....
, and that the US will "evaluate the composition and policies of the new government and calibrate our approach accordingly."
The Quartet, a joint initiative of the European Union, United Nations
...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships...
, Russia, and the United States, demands an end to violence and that the Paleostinians recognize Israel and all agreements signed with the Jewish state.
By law, US aid to the Paleostinians may not benefit Hamas, which Washington regards as a terrorist group, "or any entity effectively controlled by Hamas, any power-sharing government of which Hamas is a member, or that results from an agreement with Hamas and over which Hamas exercises undue influence."
Annual US aid to the Paleostinians has run at about $500 million in recent years, although it fell to roughly $440 million in the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, 2013, according to a Congressional Research Service report.