By Brigitte L. Nacos
Whether $86.4 million as Reuters reported earlier this month or $98 million as the Washington Post mentions in today’s editorial—it is mind-boggling that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on behalf of the Bush administration agreed to provide Palestinian security forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas and drawn from the ranks of al-Fatah with a large sum of money in the name of strengthening and reforming those who are now involved in the power struggle with Hamas. As the Post’s editorial points out, these are the “same forces it [the administration] rightly condemned in the past as hopelessly corrupt and compromised by involvement in terrorism. Those forces haven't changed…”
The al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade that has claimed responsibility for many terrorist acts against Israeli civilians is closely connected to the al-Fatah organization. According to the MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base,
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade is an active terrorist organization committed to the creation of a Palestinian nation-state. The brigade is comprised of an unknown number of small militias, or cells. While never officially recognized by al-Fatah or its former leader Yasir Arafat, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade is predominantly comprised of terrorists who also belong to al-Fatah.
Ironically, the group is also on the the Department of Homeland Security's list of designated foreign terrorist organizations. But this designation and the group’s ties to al-Fatah obviously did not give pause to Dr. Rice or anyone else in the administration, when they decided on the aid package. Perhaps we will never know but it is hard to believe that there will be no terrorists from the ranks of the al-Aksa Martyr Brigade among the security forces to be trained and equipped—although supposedly not with lethal weapons.
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