WASHINGTON — Senior lawmakers from both parties Sunday threw their support behind President Bush's pledge to withhold aid to the Palestinian Authority until the militant Islamic group Hamas renounces terrorism and its commitment to the destruction of Israel.
The leader of Hamas said the Palestinian government would ask Islamic nations for help if Western aid dried up, raising the specter that Iran's influence could increase.
The statements by members of Congress came days after Hamas' landslide victory in parliamentary elections caught the Bush administration and European governments off guard.
"The United States Congress will not be giving money to a government that supports terrorism, that refuses to disarm its militias, that has as its goal in its charter the destruction of Israel," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, echoed Frist's stance.
"Unless they change their stripes ... I think we do exactly what the president says. We do not deal with them. Not a penny," he said on CNN's "Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer."
Congress has earmarked $150 million for the Palestinians this year, much of it for nongovernmental organizations rebuilding the shattered infrastructure in the Palestinian territories. U.S. law prohibits Congress from funding any organization classified as terrorist, as Hamas is. In an interview Friday with CBS News, Bush warned that unless Hamas renounced violence, "aid packages won't go forward."
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, en route to London, told reporters Sunday, "The United States is not prepared to fund an organization that advocates the destruction of Israel, that advocates violence and that refuses its obligations" under an international framework for Middle East peace talks. She added that some humanitarian aid would be considered on a "case by case basis," Associated Press reported.
Mahmoud Zahar, a senior Hamas figure, refused Sunday to back down from his group's long-standing positions on Israel, and said Hamas would find new sources of funding if the Bush administration and European governments withdrew their financial support.
"We'll be able to open a new channel through our other Arabic and Islamic and international community, to help the Palestinian people without condition," Zahar told "Late Edition." He added, "We are looking for this money, but this money should not be conditioned."
