US wants parallel Palestinian government: 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 westernized Salam 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 Israel 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."