Mahmoud Abbas has good reason to rejoice. America, Europe and Israel have financed his failures and indications are they will continue to do so regardless of the corruption, violence and incompetence of his organization - and that is why American foreign policy in the Israeli-Palestinian arena has been such an abject failure. Fatah has never fulfilled

American foreign policy in the Israeli-Palestinian arena has been such an abject failure.

its promise to crack down on terror or its suicidal militias, and it has allowed an entire generation of Palestinian youth to be poisoned though its media, mosques and culture; yet, for its Western financial backers (including Israel), none of this appears to matter.


First, America compelled Israel to allow democratic elections in a society that has no democratic traditions and is permeated with a culture of death. It then expressed "shock and dismay" when that society elected Islamic terrorists. Next, it decided that the Palestinians might not yet be ready for true "democracy," so they abandoned the effort in favor of training and arming the "secular terrorists" of Fatah to fight the "radical terrorists" of Hamas in Gaza. They then trained the corrupt, disorganized Fatah terrorists with the finest American weaponry, using the best American advisors, and provided them with millions of dollars - only to have the Fatah forces routed and all the weaponry seized by Hamas. Now, the administration is pushing to isolate Hamas in a futile effort to secure Fatah control over the West Bank. To that end, it is preparing (again) to lift financial and diplomatic restrictions and donate another $40 million to Fatah.


It seems that the billions of dollars already donated to Fatah to improve the quality of life for their populations (donations that have made the Palestinians, at least on paper, the largest per capita recipients of humanitarian relief in the world) have not been enough, so the American solution is to throw more millions at Fatah because they have now been "separated" from Hamas. Unfortunately for US policy makers, neither Nablus nor Kalkilya on the West Bank are any more amenable to reason than is Gaza and, from a political perspective, there is little difference between the Islamic terrorists of Hamas and the secular terrorists of Fatah. If there really had been such a distinction, why then did the Palestinians, en massein a democratic experiment some eighteen months ago, vote for an Islamist movement whose very charter is pledged to the destruction of Israel and the imposition of Islamic rule?


As noted in a recent Washington Post editorial by Robert Malley and Aaron David Miller: "Having embraced one illusion - that it could help isolate and defeat Hamas - the Bush administration is dangerously close to embracing another - Gaza is dead, long live the West Bank." Unfortunately, that notion is based on the premise that Fatah already controls the West Bank (which is not the case). Fatah is no longer an ideologically or organizationally coherent movement. It has descended into a multitude of offshoots, fiefdoms and personal interests. In fact, the most recent attacks against Israel have been launched by the suicidal Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades militia - a terrorist Fatah group that Abbas has yet to disown, despite his rhetoric to the contrary.


The Post editorial notes: "Sooner or later (Abbas) will be forced to pursue new power-sharing arrangements between Hamas and Fatah...." In fact, he has already begun to do so - secretly. While Israel, the West and other Arab governments are rushing to offer financial support to the Fatah terrorists on the West Bank in hopes of preventing a Hamas take-over, Mahmoud Abbas is secretly trying to establish another "unity government" under his leadership that would confirm Hamas' domination of Gaza. As bait, he is offering Hamas the Interior Ministry of the Palestinian Authority (which controls the Palestinian security forces) and has already appointed Sheikh Mahmoud Habbash (a prominent Hamas supporter from the Gaza) as Social Welfare and Agriculture Minister in Fatah’s new government.


As DEBKAfile reports: "Abbas will not invest (Western) cash in a security force capable of taking on Hamas because not a single soldier will be sent into battle against the Islamist group, any more than he sent his Presidential Guardsmen into action to save Gaza from Hamas domination last week. For his needs, the force built by the Americans will suffice. Aid funds will be used to cover the wages of the Palestinian Authority security personnel remaining in the Gaza Strip under Hamas rule and preserve their loyalty."


In the end, Abbas intends to ensconce Iran and Damascus on Israel's border and strengthen Hamas' position on the West Bank through a new Palestinian unity government that he intends to control. Unfortunately for America, Israel and the Europeans, Abbas's track record with Hamas on the West Bank will fare no better than his failures in Gaza. Hamas has already reaped the spoils of war in Gaza by seizing millions of American-financed weapons, uniforms, armored vehicles and funds (not to mention intelligence documents that Fatah failed to destroy in their scramble to exit Gaza), but these spoils pale in the face of the treasure trove that awaits Hamas on the West Bank thanks to forthcoming American, European and Israeli largess.


In fact, a senior Hamas terrorist told WorldNetDaily on June 19 that Hamas is encouraged by the funding and arming of Fatah in Judea and Samaria, as it is certain it will inherit those weapons and funds just as it did when it took over Gaza. Its plan of action will be to use suicide bombers and car-bombs against Fatah in upcoming battles. This was corroborated by a senior Palestinian security official in Ramallah, who told a

Abbas intends to ensconce Iran and Damascus on Israel's border.

Washington Post reporter that Hamas has already recruited hundreds of sleeper cells in Nablus and Hebron, outfitted with guns and uniforms and ready to move.


Albert Einstein once defined "insanity" as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Is it not possible for this administration to learn from its mistakes? Mahmoud Abbas, who has repeatedly said he rejects violence and endorses the two-state solution, nevertheless legitimized Hamas' rejectionist alternative when he entered into a power-sharing agreement with the group in the February 2007 Mecca Accords. Now, even as he seeks additional financial aid from America, Israel and Europe, he is making secret bargains with Hamas. He is not to be trusted.


No progress toward Palestinian statehood can be made before the monumentally corrupt, violent and militant Fatah organization has been reformed financially, ideologically and structurally, and the longer unconditional economic aid and political support is provided by the West, the longer that process will be.


The problem with the concept of "the lesser of two evils" is that, in the end, evil still triumphs.