While reporting “The Gaza Bombshell,” David Rose acquired an extraordinary trove of documents showing how the U.S. pressured its Palestinian allies to take on Hamas—a strategy that proved disastrous when Hamas staged what appears to have been a pre-emptive coup in Gaza last June. Here are some of the key records he discovered.
- These “talking points” were left behind in Ramallah by a State Department envoy. Palestinian and American officials say they formed the basis for State Department official Jake Walles’s discussions with Palestinian president and Fatah party leader Mahmoud Abbas in late October or early November 2006. According to the memo, Walles urged Abbas to dissolve the Hamas-led government if Hamas refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist, promising that the U.S. and its Arab allies would strengthen Fatah’s military forces to deal with the likely backlash from Hamas.
- “Plan B” refers to a State Department strategy that was devised after Abbas made a deal in January 2007 to form a unity government with Fatah and Hamas—much to America’s dismay. This early, two-page draft, which has been authenticated by senior State Department officials who knew of its content at the time and by Palestinians who saw it in Abbas’s office, outlines possible scenarios for Abbas to expel Hamas from power and to boost his security forces to deal with the inevitable violent fallout.
- Plan B evolved into this “action plan for the Palestinian Presidency”—a blueprint for a full-blown coup against Abbas’s own unity government. This was one of several drafts presented by a joint American-Jordanian team. Officials who were knowledgeable at the time say it originated with the State Department. Its security appendix reveals details of the secret talks between Palestinian strongman Muhammad Dahlan and Lieutenant General Keith Dayton.
- The final draft of the action plan adopted large sections of the previous documents wholesale, but presented the plan as if it had been conceived from the beginning by Abbas and his staff. This draft has also been authenticated by officials knowledgeable at the time. Note especially the third section, on security.
