USAID spending on Fatah campaign

TODAH RABAH to westbankmama, who sends us this link to the Washington Post: US Funds Enter Fray in Palestinian Elections

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- The Bush administration is spending foreign aid money to increase the popularity of the Palestinian Authority on the eve of crucial elections in which the governing party faces a serious challenge from the radical Islamic group Hamas.

The approximately $2 million program is being led by a division of the U.S. Agency for International Development. But no U.S. government logos appear with the projects or events being undertaken as part of the campaign, which bears no evidence of U.S. involvement and does not fall within the definitions of traditional development work.

U.S. officials say their low profile is meant to ensure that the Palestinian Authority receives public credit for a collection of small, popular projects and events to be unveiled before Palestinians select their first parliament in a decade. Internal documents outlining the program describe the effort as "a temporary paradigm shift" in the way the aid agency operates.

Charles at LGF extended his excerpt one paragraph further, to include this:

U.S. and Palestinian officials say they fear the election, scheduled for Wednesday, will result in a large Hamas presence in the 132-seat legislature. Hamas, formally known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, is at war with Israel and is classified by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization. But its reputation for competence and accountability in providing social services has made it a stiff rival of the secular Fatah movement, which runs the Palestinian Authority and has long been the largest party in the Palestinian territories.

And then he asked, ever so cleverly,

The “secular” Fatah movement? With a “wing” called the “Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades?” That secular movement?

But the bigger question is whether Hamas really is worse than Fatah (Arabic for “Conquest”), or if they’re just two facets of the same ideology.

An elderly Palestinian man holding the Koran, the holy book of Muslims, chants anti-Israeli slogans during a campaign rally organised by the Hamas movement for the upcoming Palestinian legislative elections in Khan Younis refugee camp south of Gaza January 22, 2006. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah

Palestinian policemen, supporters of the ruling Fatah movement, brandish their weapons as they arrive at the polling station in the Khan Younis refugee camp January 21, 2006.... REUTERS/Mohammed Salem