Israel Goes Along With Aid Decision

Israel said Wednesday that it would accept a decision by international mediators to provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, provided the funds did not fall into the hands of the Hamas-led government.

The so-called quartet, consisting of the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia, agreed a day earlier to establish a temporary mechanism to help provide urgently needed goods and services, including medical care.

The Bush administration bowed to strong pressure from its allies in agreeing to the proposal but will not contribute financially.

Since the Islamic militant group Hamas took power in March, Israel has lobbied Western nations to refrain from providing aid to the cash-strapped Palestinian government. Hamas refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist or to renounce violence.

However, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said it had no wish to trigger a humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“From our perspective, the quartet’s decision to give more humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, not through the Hamas government, is certainly acceptable,” Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told Army Radio.

But Israel signaled that it might object at some point to the use of quartet-channeled funds to pay the salaries of the 165,000 Palestinian Authority government employees, who have gone unpaid for the last two months. The Europeans, who will take the lead in implementing the plan, have indicated that some of the money might be used to pay civil servants.

After assuming power, Hamas brought thousands of loyalists onto the government payroll.

“We certainly don’t want to strengthen Hamas by paying employees who are not absolutely necessary,” Livni said.

The quartet plan, the outlines of which are sketchy, points to possible cracks in what had been a consensus among Western nations in favor of isolating Hamas diplomatically and financially. In recent weeks, it has become clear that such a move would be very difficult without increasing the already substantial hardship on ordinary Palestinians.

The Palestinian government’s executive branch, led by moderate President Mahmoud Abbas, welcomed the quartet’s decision. At least some of the money is likely to be funneled through Abbas’ office.

“We hope ... to avoid a human catastrophe,” said Saeb Erekat, a senior Abbas aide.

Hamas, perhaps mindful of its precarious position, refrained from criticizing the plan, even while denouncing aid cutoffs as a means of pressuring the group to change its policies.

“The quartet sometimes seeks to force the government to concede its rights and recognize the legality of the [Israeli] occupation,” Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a senior Hamas leader, told reporters in Gaza City.

But even Mahmoud Zahar, the firebrand Hamas foreign minister, welcomed the move. “We appreciate every effort to help the Palestinian people,” he said.

Israel’s Army Radio reported that Israel would probably come under renewed pressure to halt its freeze on the monthly transfer of about $55 million in tax revenue it collects on the Palestinians’ behalf.

One way for Israel to free up that money without allowing it to reach Hamas would be to use it to pay for services such as gas and electricity, which reach the West Bank and Gaza via Israeli suppliers.

The Israeli company that provides fuel to the Palestinian territories said Wednesday that it was halting deliveries because of about $25 million in unpaid bills.

Meanwhile, Olmert got a taste of the unruly coalition politics that have bedeviled every Israeli leader since the state’s inception.

The new government, led by Olmert’s Kadima party, was sworn in last week, with the second-biggest vote-getter, Labor, its main coalition partner. On Wednesday, in the alliance’s first legislative test, four Labor lawmakers abstained from a preliminary vote on Olmert’s state budget for the year, to protest an increase in the price of bread.

The budget measure passed 62 to 47, but such an early show of defiance from within the ranks could bode ill for Olmert’s efforts to keep the coalition together.