Trump threatens to cut off financial aid to Palestinians

UNITED STATES: Acknowledging that his push to broker peace in the Middle East has stalled, US President Donald Trump yesterday appeared to threaten to cut off US aid money to the Palestinian Authority, asking why the US should make ‘‘any of these massive future payments’’ when they are ‘‘no longer willing to talk peace’’.

Trump, in a pair of tweets, said the US paid the Palestinians ‘‘HUNDRED OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect. They don’t even want to negotiate a long overdue ... peace treaty with Israel’’.

Trump infuriated Palestinians and Muslims across the Middle East when he announced late last year that the US would consider Jerusalem the capital of Israel and move its embassy there, upending decades of US policy and igniting protests. While the Palestinians haven’t closed the door to a potential deal with Israel, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas said the announcement had destroyed Trump’s credibility as a Middle East peace broker.

Yesterday’s tweets mark a tacit admission by Trump that his decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem has thrown a wrench into his administration’s plans to restart the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians, which he had dubbed ‘‘the ultimate deal’’.

He tasked his son-in-law Jared Kushner with restarting the effort, and brought his former attorney, Jason Greenblatt, into the White House to lead the negotiations. Trump’s Mideast peace team had held meetings with Israeli, Palestinian and Arab leaders for nearly a year ahead of an expected peace proposal.

Trump said his decision merely recognised the reality that Jerusalem already serves as Israel’s capital and wasn’t meant to prejudge the final borders of the city. On Twitter yesterday, he also issued a threat to cut off foreign aid dollars to an unspecified list of countries that don’t reciprocate.

‘‘It’s not only Pakistan that we pay billions of dollars to for nothing, but also many other countries, and others,’’ Trump wrote.

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, foreshadowed Trump’s warning earlier yesterday at the UN Security Council. Haley said the president did not want to give any more funds ‘‘until the Palestinians are willing to come back to the negotiation table’’.

Since a December 21 UN vote condemning Trump’s Jerusalem decision, US officials have been weighing various options for retaliating against the Palestinians for pushing the resolution. Those options, which are to be discussed by Trump’s top national security aides at a meeting next week, include several involving cutting off some or all aid to the Palestinian Authority.

Another option would be to cut funding to the UN agency that provides services to the Palestinians in places like Gaza, Jordan and Lebanon.

Officials familiar with the discussions noted that only a relatively small amount of the more than US$220 million that the US was planning on sending to the Palestinians in the current budget year actually went to the Palestinian Authority. Most of the assistance goes to non-governmental groups that are involved in building civic organisations that promote good governance, anticorruption efforts, and health and education projects.

The officials said one possibility would be to redirect aid from the Palestinian Authority to those groups. –AP