Chirac Seeks Fund to Pay Palestinians http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=sto...=/ap/20060428/ap_on_re_eu/france_palestinians PARIS - French President Jacques Chirac proposed on Friday the creation of a World Bank fund to pay the 165,000 Palestinian Authority employees living without wages since an international freeze on aid. The idea, intended to help needy Palestinians without rewarding their militant Hamas government, is part of quickening European efforts to solve the dilemma as the Palestinians' plight grows more dire. The United States and the 25-nation European Union, which includes France, this month cut off direct aid to the Palestinian Authority because the Islamic Hamas movement heading it refuses to recognize Israel or renounce violence. The Palestinian Authority last paid employees' salaries in mid-March, before the Hamas-led government was sworn in. Chirac made the proposal during a meeting Friday with moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Paris, said the French president's spokesman, Jerome Bonnafont. "With regard to salaries, we could urgently study the creation of a trust fund managed for example by the World Bank and which would be the destination of aid for paying salaries," Bonnafont quoted Chirac as saying. Hamas said it would consider the idea, and Abbas welcomed it. "Any means that will maintain the authority of the government and the preservation of money and at the same time help the Palestinian people we will study and think about thoroughly," said Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas. Abbas said failure to find a solution "will be catastrophic." But officials in the donor community fear the Americans may object to the idea and it might take months to set up such a fund — a crucial drawback with Palestinian coffers draining quickly. The EU is the Palestinians' largest donor, giving more than $600 million a year in aid. Without it, the Palestinian Authority has been unable to pay public workers. French officials say the EU decision was not aimed at cutting aid definitively but suspending it while the bloc considered other ways of funding the Palestinians without giving directly to Hamas, which is on EU and U.S. lists of terrorist organizations. The World Bank would be a logical conduit for aid, respected both by the Israelis and Palestinians and with a long record of involvement in the region. The World Bank office in Jerusalem said it could design such a mechanism but had not yet been asked to do so. Reacting to Chirac's proposal, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said that while an unreformed Hamas government is not worthy of international aid, "everyone understands that the Palestinian people should not be made to suffer because of the shortsightedness, stubbornness and extremism of their government." State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said he had not seen Chirac's proposal and did not say whether the U.S. would support it. But the U.S. has legal and political restrictions regarding funding terrorist groups "particularly if that foreign terrorist organization is in charge of a government," he said. "So we're going to have to work within those constraints while at the same time being mindful that the humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people have to be met. And we're going to look for ... creative and workable solutions to that very difficult conundrum," Ereli added. EU spokeswoman Emma Udwin said the proposal "is not at odds with the position" of the European Commission. Chirac urged Hamas to respect international demands that it renounce violence and recognize Israel's right to exist. But he insisted that regardless, continued aid to Palestinians remains necessary and France would push for it "within the international community and notably within the European Union." He also said it was crucial for Israelis and Palestinians to resume peace negotiations. Abbas, a moderate whose Fatah Party was defeated by Hamas in January legislative elections, has worked to try to keep the West from shunning the Palestinians. "The international community should give this new government the opportunity to express itself, to adapt, to harmonize itself with international law," Abbas said. "Hamas is adapting. Hamas is today a government, a responsible government with ministers who are working with neighbors, with the Israelis and the world."
Yeah, it's not like the Palestinians had free election wherein they could choose who their government was going to be, and then voted in a known terrorist organization.
