Saudis set to give financial aid to Palestinian Authority

MIDDLE EAST: Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority are to begin talks this month on financial aid of $1.2 billion to meet the authority's budget deficit of $800 million. A Riyadh-based diplomat said yesterday that the two sides would "examine ways to support the Palestinian people" after the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian legislative election.

In addition to governmental aid, the Palestinians can expect another $150 million from Saudi charities and citizens.

In response to Israel's decision to freeze €37 million in tax and customs revenues collected by Israel on behalf of the Palestinians, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have also agreed to grant $33 million in emergency aid to meet the authority's payroll.

Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, has wide popular backing in Saudi Arabia, which in 2002 put forward a peace plan based on full Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory in exchange for full Arab normalisation with Israel, which rejected the plan.

Syria, which crushed the Muslim Brotherhood in 1982, has called on Arab governments to give political and financial backing to Hamas.

Highly critical of the late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat when he concluded a separate deal with Israel in 1993, Syria has permitted senior leaders of dissident Palestinian resistance groupings, including the politburo of Hamas, to base themselves in Damascus.

The response of Saudi Arabia and Syria to Hamas's triumph contrasts sharply with the attitude of Egypt and Jordan, the two Arab states that have signed peace treaties with Israel. Cairo and Amman, close US allies, have joined the Quartet - the US, UN, EU and Russia - to exert pressure on Hamas to recognise Israel and renounce violence, demands that Hamas has refused to meet.

Egyptian prime minister Ahmad Nazif observed that Hamas, when it entered government, would have to accept commitments that were made by the Palestine Liberation Organisation when the Palestinian Authority was established, including recognition of Israel within the 1967 borders and renunciation of violence.

In Amman, Prime Minister Marouf Bakhit said that Jordan - which expelled Hamas figures in 1994 - would continue to ban contacts with the movement's exiled leadership. Both Egypt and Jordan fear that the rise of Hamas could encourage domestic Muslim Brotherhood organisations to press for a greater role in government.

Last year the Egyptian Brotherhood won 20 per cent of the seats in national assembly elections, while the Jordanian Brotherhood, a mainstay of the monarchy, has always been under-represented in parliament.