[Peace-discuss] Military aid to Israel

[Morton K. Brussel]

Maddening.  --mkb


U.S. official: Obama won't cut military aid to Israel

By DPA

Tags: Israel News, Obama, IDF

U.S. President Barack Obama will not cut the billions of dollars in  
military aid promised to Israel, a senior U.S. administration official  
said Wednesday.

The $30 billion in aid promised to Israel over the next decade will  
not be harmed by the world financial crisis, the official told Israel  
Radio. He spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Obama Administration however expects the next government of Prime  
Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu to continue peace negotiations  
with the Palestinians, he said.
	
The increased military aid was promised to outgoing prime minister  
Ehud Olmert by then-under secretary of state for political affairs  
Nicholas Burns in August 07.

Israel Radio also quoted the official as saying that if Hamas joins a  
Palestinian unity cabinet but does not accept the conditions of the  
Quartet of Middle East peace sponsors - the U.S., European Union,  
United Nations and Russia - the Obama Administration would have no  
dealings with that government.

The radical Islamist movement ruling Gaza is holding talks in Cairo  
with the secular Fatah party of moderate President Mahmoud Abbas and  
other factions on forming a unity government.

The talks in Cairo are a bid to reconcile between the rivaling  
factions, which have been locked in a bitter power struggle since  
Hamas beat Fatah in January 2006 elections and culminated in the  
Islamist group violently seizing sole control of Gaza in June 2007.

After the Hamas elections victory, the Quartet said it would boycott  
Hamas, unless it recognized Israel's right to exist, endorsed past  
interim peace deals calling for a two-state solution to the conflict,  
and renounced violence. 
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