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Saturday, September 15, 2018
Trump targets sick Palestinians
Palestinians protest against the US decision to stop funding UNRWA in the West Bank city of Hebron on 8 September.APA images
The Trump administration in Washington has slashed more than $25 million in approved aid for six hospitals in East Jerusalem providing care to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The US also announced that it is closing the Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington.
The moves are the latest in a series of measures intended to bludgeon
Palestinians into submitting to the White House’s “peace” process. The Palestinian Authority froze communications with the American administration in December, when Trump declared that the US would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
The US announced last month that it would stop funding UNRWA,
the UN agency for Palestine refugees, after freezing $300 million in
aid in January, throwing the body into unprecedented financial crisis.
The US has also decided to cut $200 million more in bilateral aid to the West Bank and Gaza.
The Trump administration reportedly delayed the
cuts to the East Jerusalem hospitals after influential Christian
supporters of the facilities lobbied for the exclusion of three of them
from legislation placing severe restrictions on aid to Palestinians
approved by Congress earlier this year.
Walid Nammour, director of the Augusta Victoria Hospital, told NPR’s
Jerusalem correspondent that East Jerusalem hospitals weren’t notified
of the the cuts.
Nammour said that US aid had been held up for months before it was
finally cut this week, forcing the hospital to take out loans.
More on news that US is cutting #Palestinian medical aid: Augusta Victoria hospital director tells me the US didn't notify east Jerusalem hospitals. The hospitals give cancer/other treatments unavailable in West Bank & Gaza. The US used to pay 25% of the hospital's bills. 1/3
A journalist with the Israeli daily Haaretz noted that
Trump’s Middle East peace envoy had praised the work of the
130-year-old St. John Eye Hospital, another institution affected by the
funding cuts, as recently as March:
Through a medical mission supported by @USAIDWBG, a team of dedicated @StJohnEyeHosp surgeons traveled to Gaza to provide critical specialized operations rarely available there. Thanks to their skilled work, this single mother has regained her eyesight.
Replicating Israeli cruelty in Gaza
By cutting funds for food aid programs, education and healthcare, the US
is banking on the same strategy of collective punishment behind
Israel’s siege on Gaza.
The blockade, imposed in 2007, has failed to achieve Israel’s aims to
end Hamas’ political and military control over the interior of the
territory, but has plunged the two million Palestinians living there
into poverty and despair.
“Let America know that all these acts will not change our position
toward our cause one bit. On the contrary, it consolidates our positions
toward every issue, including Jerusalem,” Adnan Husseini, Palestinian
minister for Jerusalem affairs, told NPR.
The group Physicians for Human Rights-Israel warned that the decision to stop funding East Jerusalem hospitals may lead to the “collapse” of the Palestinian healthcare system.
“Israel – the occupier – will have to fill the void in patient care,” the group added.
Israel is not likely to fulfill its obligations under international law
and provide essential services for the millions of Palestinians in the
West Bank and Gaza living under military occupation, and has been
content for third party states to fulfill that role through aid.
But the Israeli military establishment believes that without any
alternative to UNRWA, US aid cuts will lead to an even worse
humanitarian disaster in Gaza, and a “nearly inevitable” escalation in
violence, Haaretzreported.
“An Israeli delegation to a donor conference in New York later this
month is expected to encourage donor countries to pitch in to guarantee
the continued delivery of food, education services and the salaries of
the UN’s 30,000 employees in the Strip,” according to Haaretz.
Meanwhile Trump boasted of his use of humanitarian aid for political
leverage during a phone call last week described by a White House transcript as including Jewish faith leaders and rabbis ahead of the Jewish new year.
“The United States was paying them [the Palestinians] tremendous amounts
of money. And I’d say, you’ll get money, but we’re not paying you until
we make a deal. If we don’t make a deal, we’re not paying. And that’s
going to have a little impact,” Trump said.
Trump recently signed a military spending bill codifying
into law a record-breaking pledge made by his predecessor to give
Israel $38 billion in military assistance over 10 years.
The US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, meanwhile, told an Israeli newspaper that the Trump administration has not made any challenge to Israeli settlement building in the West Bank.
“Israel shouldn’t have to ask permission from the US” to build settlements, Friedman told Yisrael Hayom last week.
He also denied a claim made by Trump that Israel would have to pay a price for the move of the US embassy to Jerusalem.
“There’s nothing expected of Israel to give in return for the embassy move,” he said.
Friedman also said that “it’s possible” that the US would recognize Israeli claims to the Golan Heights, Syrian territory seized and occupied during the 1967 War.
“I personally cannot imagine a situation in which the Golan Heights will be returned to Syria,” Friedman said.
Bolton threatens ICC
Friedman was responding to comments made by John Bolton, Trump’s
national security adviser, who stated last month that there had been no
discussion or decision made about the Golan Heights.
Bolton made clear on Monday that the US would impose sanctions or seek to criminally prosecute officials at the International Criminal Court if they pursue investigations into alleged American war crimes in Afghanistan or those committed by Israel.
The situation in Palestine has been under preliminary examination by the prosecutor’s office since 2015.
“If the court comes after us, Israel, or other US allies we will not sit quietly,” Bolton said during an address to the right-wing Federalist Society in Washington.
During his speech Bolton added that the closure of the Palestine
Liberation Office office in Washington was due to Palestinian efforts to
prosecute Israeli leaders at The Hague.
He also said that the US would negotiate bilateral agreements to prohibit other states from surrendering Americans to the court.
In addition to breaking with decades of US policy over Israeli
settlements, and enshrining US aid to Israel in law, the White House is
abandoning and subverting any international body that might challenge
Israeli impunity.
During last week’s phone call with Jewish leaders, Trump celebrated the
withdrawal of the US from the UN Human Rights Council in June.
The US “will continue to defend Israel’s sovereign rights in all international forums,” Trump stated.
