clear

Creating new perspectives since 2009

US, UK planned to prevent Hamas from achieving victory long before Israel’s ‘disengagement’, British documents reveal

December 31, 2024 at 10:00 am

UK and USA flags [Photo via Getty Images]

A year and a half before Israel “disengagement” from the Gaza Strip in 2005, the United States, the United Kingdom and the Palestinian Authority began collaborating closely on the ground to prevent the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, from gaining success, newly released British documents reveal.

UK Cabinet Office files, released by the National Archives, show that in early 2004, the three parties set up an “operation room” in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, to “pool and utilise intelligence on potential threats”. The plan aimed to cut all support routes to Palestinian resistance groups in Gaza and the West Bank and thwart any resistance to the Israeli occupation.

The operation room brought together “sixty officers from various Palestinian security services”, organised into five task forces focused on “suicide attacks, weapon smuggling, illegal finance, illegal carrying of weapons and incitement”, according to the documents.

Additionally, the Gazan Security Services, controlled by the Israeli military, set up a separate “central operation room.” These services were at “Egyptians to play a role”.

The British government provided a “police advisory mission” funded by its Department for International Development (DfID), which began on 12 April 2004, with the support of 54 police cars provided by DfID.

READ: The GCC is a flourishing garden in the middle of a fire, says first SG

In a briefing prepared for Prime Minister Tony Blair before his summit with President George W. Bush at the White House on 16 April 2004, the British confirmed that the purpose of these measures was to support the Palestinian Authority (PA). According to the plan, enabling the PA to effectively take over Gaza post-withdrawal “will avoid a Hamas victory”.

Blair was advised to tell President Bush that the UK was “pressing on with our security work” and to encourage “further US/UK/ Egypt dialogue”.

By 31 March 2004, the British began their “formal monitoring of early successes”, including the “discovery of two explosives/arms caches in Bethlehem”, which contained “materials for a suicide belt”.

The implementation of this security plan began after the US expressed to the UK its willingness to “give the Quartet ownership of the international input into ensuring post-withdrawal support in Gaza”. The Quartet, established in 2002, comprises the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia, and was intended to facilitate Middle East peace negotiations and support Palestinian development and institution-building in preparation for eventual statehood.

The US controlled the Quartet’s Task Force on security, and the British believed this “may provide the bureaucratic cover” for any work on security on the ground.

The British security plan was part of a broader “four-track” approach for the Quartet’s role. These tracks included economic support, reform initiatives, political action and security cooperation with Egypt, the US, and the UK within a “structure for support for the Palestinian Authority”.

The British also suggested strong support for the creation of a World Bank Trust Fund for Palestine “to maximise and channel aid to the PA”. They, however, insisted that any aid should be “with conditionality to leverage reform”. They proposed a task force, including the Quartet, Canada, Japan, Norway, the World Bank and the IMF, to “build Palestinian capacity”.

READ: UK, US intended to move Palestinians out of Palestine through UNRWA, British documents reveal

The British wanted to build on ”new US emphasis on reviving” existing structures that included seven reform support groups on civil society, elections, financial accountability, judicial and rule of law reform, market economics, local government and ministerial and civil service reform.

On the political level, the UK aimed to strengthen the Quartet’s role as “the means of providing international oversight and articulating the international input”. The British approach also pointed to “considering ways to explore whether there is a need for change /reinforcement” through monitoring by Quartet envoys.

On security, the British recommended Egypt play an active role alongside the US and UK. The British prime minister’s team, headed by Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Blair’s foreign policy and defence adviser, offered building on the British “current security work” in Gaza and West Bank to establish “a close partnership between the UK, the US and Egypt, supporting PA efforts on hard security”. The team stressed that the Brits are continuing “bilateral work” with the PA on security “with a view to building a strong foundation for an effective PA take-over of Gaza”.

On 16 April 2004, two days before the Bush-Blair summit, the US president hosted Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. They discussed the latter’s plan for unilateral disengagement from Gaza where the Israeli military was suffering from rising casualties among soldiers who were protecting the illegal settlements.

Sharon’s plan proposed withdrawing from Gaza and four West Bank settlements. In return, the Israeli leader received an American letter of guarantees recognising the major Israeli settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank, rejecting withdrawal to the borders of 4 June 1967, and denying the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

British-American communications after the Sharon-Bush meeting reveal dissatisfaction within the US administration with concessions to Israel.

“There had been no need for Bush to make any concessions on the border or the Right of Return,” Richard Armitage, the US deputy Secretary of State, told Sir David Manning, the British ambassador to the US.

After a “private discussion” with the American official, Manning reported Armitage’s frustration, noting that Sharon had “taken the pants off us.” While Armitage believed that the logic of what Bush had said “might be incontestable”, he asked: “Why give these cards up now?” According to the British ambassador, Armitage was “gloomy”.

Armitage also told the ambassador that what happened between Bush and Sharon “had taken their toll on Condi” referring to Condoleezza Rice, the White House’s national security adviser. “She disguised it but she had become tense and brittle,” Manning quoted Armitage as saying.

During the meeting, Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, rang Armitage to tell him “Abu Ala [then PA Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei] had phoned to say how furious he was with Bush’s performance.”

Despite these concerns, Rice predicted only temporary discontent from the Arabs.

When Sheinwald alerted her, during a phone conversation, that the Arabs and Palestinians “would be unhappy” with the language used by President Bush particularly on right of return, she acknowledged this, expecting they “would howl and flail for a while”.

In a letter to Geoffrey Adams, the principal private secretary to the British secretary of state for foreign and commonwealth affairs, Sheinwald reported that he told the US national security adviser that “It was a pity that the language on the right of return had had to rule out return to Israel.”

“This was the result of a long period of redrafting,” she responded, adding that the president had been clear that he had supported a two-state solution “on the assumption that the Palestinians would return to Palestine.”

On the issue of illegal settlements, Sheinwald explained that Rice thought that President Bush’s languages “should be acceptable from an Arab point of view”. She considered that the key point is that Sharon’s plan for unilateral disengagement with Gaza was “an opportunity”, pointing out that “Not an inch of Palestinian territory had been returned until now.”

In late August 2005, Israel completed its withdrawal from Gaza. Four months later, in January 2006, Palestinian legislative elections were held, as urged by President Bush, and won by Hamas. Although the election was seen as a milestone for Palestinian democracy by the EU and other international parties, the US-led Quartet boycotted the Hamas-led Palestinian government. The US, Israel and the EU designated Hamas a terrorist group. Western aid to the Palestinian people was withdrawn. With the support of Israel, the US and regional players a plot by the Fatah Movement – led by the current Chair of the PA, Mahmoud Abbas – to overthrow Hamas in Gaza failed. In June 2007, the organisation took full control of Gaza, leading to a complete blockade of the territory.

READ: UNRWA chief says one Palestinian child killed every hour in Gaza