MER - MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 2 June: American chicanery in the Middle East is hardly new -- just ask the Iranians, Lebanese, Syrians, Algerians, Egyptians, Jordanians, Saudis, and the list goes on. But when it comes to the Palestinians American and British double-dealing has been going on for so long now that in a sense many have gotten use to it or simply resigned to their fate.

But of course others have chosen different more challenging responses as over the years this American chicanery has unleashed poisons and hatreds that provide the backdrop to and many of the causes for today's 'Clash of Civilizations.'
What the U.S. has done in the past in the Middle East, nearly always in tandem with the Israelis of course for quite some time, is considerably responsible for the current explosive situation in the region. What the U.S., Israel, and the UK are doing now may well in the end result in the "mega-crisis" predicted in the important recent article by David Hirst which MER featured earlier this week.

US seeks parallel Palestinian government, says former MI6 officer

The US is effectively seeking to undermine the Palestinian government by trying to return Fatah to power to negotiate final status issues on a partial state, according to former British MI6 intelligence officer Alastair Crooke.

"The US aims to create a shadow government centred around the president and his Fatah party as a counterpoint to a financially starved Hamas-led government which will, US officials hope, prove ineffective and wither," Crooke said.

To this end, he said, the US is seeking to build a militia of 3,500 men around the office of Mahmoud Abbas, to enlarge his staff and to channel as much of the expenditure and work of the government as possible through the presidency.

"They would like to see Fatah return to power, albeit led by someone like the westernised Salaam Fayad, a former Palestinian finance minister and World Bank official," the former adviser to the EU said in an article for Prospect magazine.

Crooke specialized in conflict zones while working 30 years for MI6 before he was exposed by the Israelis after negotiating previous ceasefires with the Palestinians.

His latest warning comes amid US attempts with the Zionist regime to topple the new Hamas-led government by using financial pressure to effectively starve the Palestinians into submission.

But "almost no one believes that putting Palestinians on a 'diet' will make them more moderate or help to restart a political process with Israel," the former British agent said.

He said it also seems that "Israelis are not convinced that Abbas, whom they regard as weak, can deliver on any agreement."

"The pressure is designed to give the new government no option but to accede to three US and EU demands: recognition of Israel, renunciation of violence, and acceptance of all earlier agreements dating back to the Oslo accords," Crooke said.

But he added that some very senior US officials are "not interested so much in Hamas's transformation to non-violence as in the failure and collapse of the Hamas-led government."
With regard to the EU support for the boycott of funds, Crooke said that most official "doubt the policy will work," but that they feel "trapped" into adopting such a position by the "paralysis caused by European divisions over Iraq."

He suggested that the EU should instead heed the words of former Mossad chief, Efraim Halevy, who recently criticized the Zionist regime for insisting that Hamas first recognize Israel as a precondition for any discussions.

"Halevy argued rather that Israel should recognise Hamas first.

He predicted that in doing so, 'we will be seeing things we have not seen before' - an apparent allusion to talks between Israel and Hamas," Crooke said.