Rice confident of consensus on aid cut to Hamas

Sun Jan 29, 3:50 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Confident of a unified response to deny funding to a Hamas-led Palestinian government, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday the militant group would have to face the consequences of its policies.

Rice is set to meet in London on Monday with other international powers involved in the Middle East - the United Nations, the European Union and Russia -- to discuss how to respond to Hamas's victory in Palestinian elections.

Speaking to reporters en route to London, Rice said she believed members of the so-called Quartet and others were "on the same page" that funding must not go to a group such as Hamas that advocated violence and the destruction of Israel.

"The bedrock principle here is we can't have funding for an organization that holds those views just because it is in government," said Rice, who will also attend meetings on Iran's nuclear plans and a conference on Afghanistan while in London.

She said Hamas had to live with the consequences of its stand on Israel and its refusal to renounce violence and disarm militants.

"It is important that Hamas will now have to confront the implications of its covenant if it wishes to govern. And so that becomes a primary consideration in everything that we do," she said of the Quartet's response.

"I have to say there has been a pretty consistent voice in the international community about confronting that covenant and it's not just coming from the Western states, it's also coming from the region," she added.

The United States, which has given more than $1.5 billion in aid to the Palestinians since 1993, has begun a full review of its assistance programmes to the Palestinians since Hamas swept the polls last week.

The European Union, the biggest donor to the Palestinian Authority with aid worth 500 million euros ($612 million) last year, is looking at its options. Israel has suggested it would suspend customs revenue transfers to the Palestinian Authority, money crucial to paying the salaries of government employees.

OBLIGATIONS TO ABBAS

Rice said the United States would have to look at what would happen in the interim period before Hamas formed a new government, its existing financial pledges to President Mahmoud Abbas and to meeting humanitarian needs.

"We are going to take this one step at a time. This has just happened. We are going to look at what the obligations are to this caretaker government. It's important to do that. It's also important to look at humanitarian circumstances."

Hamas has rejected as "blackmail" Western demands that it renounce violence against Israel or risk losing aid. It also suggested it could look for alternative sources of funding in the Arab world and beyond.

Asked what would happen if Iran or Syria tried to fill the funding breach, Rice replied: "We would sincerely hope that people would take the implications of a Palestinian government that would be cut off from assistance and not try and fill that gap."

She pointed out a new Hamas-led government faced funding cuts from financial institutions, the United Nations, the European Union, Asian nations, the United States and others in the region. "This is a pretty big gap (to fill)," she said.

Rice conceded the Bush administration was caught off guard by Hamas's victory.

"Certainly I have asked why nobody saw it coming. I hope that we will take a hard look. It does say something about possibly not having a good enough pulse on the Palestinian population," said Rice, adding it showed the need for more U.S. diplomats in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Asked whether it would have been better to have postponed the poll, Rice said she was pleased that the election had taken place, despite the outcome.

"You can't support democracy and then say we have to do this (postpone the election) because of the outcome," she said.

Source

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