Obama plans to boost security aid to Abbas's forces

[oberliner]

Source: Reuters

JERUSALEM, March 5 (Reuters) - The Obama administration plans to expand a programme to bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's security forces in the occupied West Bank as part of a push for statehood, officials said on Thursday.

Israel has given tentative backing to the programme as a test of Abbas's ability to rein in militants, one of its main conditions in stalled U.S.-backed negotiations over establishing a Palestinian state.

Hamas Islamists, shunned by the United States and other Western powers for refusing to recognise Israel and renounce violence, have denounced Abbas's forces as collaborators and say the programme has fuelled inter-Palestinian tensions.

U.S. and Western officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Obama administration planned to boost security assistance, including funding for training conducted by Jordanian police at a base near Amman, by up to 70 percent, from $75 million in fiscal year 2008 to as much as $130 million.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed1/idUSL4918183

[BunkerHill24]

1. This is the same tired old policies that have failed in the past

arming one faction against another will not work.