Informed Speculation

This sounds a little shaky to me:

The United States and Israel are discussing ways to destabilize the Palestinian government so that newly elected Hamas officials will fail and elections will be called again, according to Israeli officials and Western diplomats.

The intention is to starve the Palestinian Authority of money and international connections to the point where, some months from now, its president, Mahmoud Abbas, is compelled to call a new election. The hope is that Palestinians will be so unhappy with life under Hamas that they will return to office a reformed and chastened Fatah movement.

The officials also argue that a close look at the election results shows that Hamas won a smaller mandate than previously understood.

The officials and diplomats, who said this approach was being discussed at the highest levels of the State Department and the Israeli government, spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.

They say Hamas will be given a choice: recognize Israel’s right to exist, forswear violence and accept previous Palestinian-Israeli agreements — as called for by the United Nations and the West — or face isolation and collapse.

Look, I’m extremely unhappy about the Hamas victory, but don’t we have a bit of an obligation, seeing as how our official policy in the Mideast could best be summed up as ‘promote freedom and democracy’, to abide by elections, even if we don’t like the results?

The article I’m quoting, by Steve Erlanger of the New York Times, goes on to (probably accurately) state what the Hamas response would be:

The strategy has many risks, especially given that Hamas will try to secure needed support from the larger Islamic world, including its allies Syria and Iran, as well as from private donors.

It will blame Israel and the United States for its troubles, appeal to the world not to punish the Palestinian people for their free democratic choice, point to the real hardship that a lack of cash will produce and may very well resort to an open military confrontation with Israel, in a sense beginning a third intifada.

Erlanger also makes it clear, however, that ‘destabilizing’ Hamas in this context is largely a matter of withholding funding. That’s fine, up to a point. We cannot be responsible for funding a terrorist organization aimed at Israel’s destruction. Period. It is not only immoral, it’s illegal:

On top of that, some of the aid that the Palestinians currently receive will be stopped or reduced by the United States and European Union governments, which will be constrained by law or politics from providing money to an authority run by Hamas. The group is listed by Washington and the European Union as a terrorist organization.

Perhaps the strategy is the right one, given the extreme nature of the organization, but charges of hypocrisy are likely to stick. A light touch and good salesmanship are called for…if the feeling among the Palestinians is that we are punishing them for exercising their democratic rights, Hamas might win an even larger majority in the next election. We have to continually stress our respect for democracy, and our great desire to see the Palestinian state become a reality, while at the same time hitting the point that we cannot be financially entangled with a government that explicitly calls for the destruction of Israel.

Our Middle East diplomats are earning their money right now…their skills will be sorely tested.

UPDATE 11:00 a.m.: Roger L. Simon is less than impressed and smells the typical State Department whining…

UPDATE 2 11:43 a.m.: The report is being denied at all levels:

The White House and Israel’s ambassador to the United States on Tuesday denied they had crafted a plan to topple the incoming, Hamas-led Palestinian government unless they renounced their violent ideology.

The New York Times, citing U.S. and Israeli officials it did not identify, reported Tuesday that the United States and Israel were considering a campaign to starve the Palestinian Authority of cash so Palestinians would grow disillusioned with Hamas and bring down a Hamas government.

In Washington, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, “There’s no plot.”

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said he was “puzzled” by the report. “We are not having conversations with the Israelis that we are not having with others … There is no plan, there is no plot,” he said.

He also reiterated the demands of the so-called Quartet of Mideast peace negotiators: that Hamas recognize Israel, renounce terror and accept past agreements reached by the Palestinians. The Quartet — which includes the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia — backs the “road map” peace plan envisioning a Palestinian state side-by-side with Israel.

Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon told The Associated Press: “There are no ongoing discussions with the U.S. designed to bring down the Palestinian government.”

“There is no conspiracy between Israel and the United States to hurt the Palestinian people and there is no plan whatsoever to compromise the well-being of the Palestinian people,” he said.

This could be a semantical controversy, as has been suggested: a reporter uses the word ‘destabilize’ because it makes good copy to describe actions that are quite out in the open, such as the withholding of some funds…