Forbes has a summary of a meeting held yesterday at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars with the Israeli and Egyptian Ambassadors as well as the PLO representative to the U.S.
To me, the central issue for the United States is how to reconcile support for "free and fair" elections in Palestine--observed by the U.N. and the National Democratice Institute--with the coming to power of a political group the U.S. has labeled a terrorist organization. How do we allow citizens to choose their own leaders and then reject the outcome? If the U.S. chooses to decrease or cutoff aid to Palestine, which is currently being discussed on Capitol Hill, we are sending a hypocritical message to the Palestinian people. It would seem to me that in so doing we would only be fostering further resentment toward the U.S. and its foreign policy.
This brings me to another point. For all of Bush's talk on bringing democracy too the Middle East and focusing on U.S. national security, Iran's position continues to get stronger. First we took out their religious and political opposition in Iraq, then we facilitated the coming to power in Palestine of an organization whose stated objective--the destruction of Israel--coincides directly with President Ahmadinejad's own interests. Obviously, U.S. government officials had no way to predict the outcome of Palestinian elections, yet it's hard for me to see how these recent developments have furthered U.S. interests in the region.
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