‘US blindly supports Israeli interests in Middle East’ - US to reduce aid to the Palestinian Authority

‘US blindly supports Israeli interests in Middle East’

US to reduce aid to the Palestinian Authority

Press TV – October 24, 2015

The United States is the “proxy” for Israeli interests in the Middle East and “blindly supports” the regime’s position in the region, says an American political scientist.
In a phone interview with Press TV, Wilmer Leon pointed to US Secretary of State John Kerry’s meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday in the Jordanian capital of Amman, saying “anything is really going to come out of this.”
“I don’t really see anything substantive or long term coming out of these meetings,” he said, because “the United States has failed to do anything substantive in order to get Israel to honestly negotiate.”
He also noted that Kerry first held a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and “took Netanyahu’s position to Palestinian Authority President [Mahmoud] Abbas, instead of meeting with Palestinian Authority President Abbas first and taking the Palestinian positions to the Israelis.”
On Thursday, Kerry held talks with Netanyahu in Berlin and called for an immediate end to “all incitement” and “violence” against the Palestinians.
“For all intents and purposes, the United States is the proxy for the Israeli interests and until the United States decides to become an unbiased real arbiter actually working for peace in the region, instead of continuing to blindly support the Israeli position, I don’t see how anything is going to happen,” Leon added.
In supporting the regime’s positions, the US State Department said it will reduce its annual aid to the Palestinian Authority from $370 million to $290 at the end of September.
The 22-percent cut for the 2015 fiscal year came after US Congress sent a letter to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, telling him that the US funds were contingent on tamping down “incitement.”
The latest wave of Israeli-Palestinian clashes began when Tel Aviv restricted the entry of some Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque on August 26.
The surge in tensions, triggered by Israeli raids on the al-Aqsa Mosque in East al-Quds (East Jerusalem), as well as increasing violence by Israeli settlers, has seen some 54 Palestinians killed and hundreds more injured since October 1. Eight Israelis have also died in the same time period.