US President Barack Obama's opposition to the Palestinians' bid for membership of the United Nations is turning their deep disappointment with his Middle East policy to outright anger. “People are getting more frustrated. Frustration always breeds anger,” said one Palestinian official who asked not to be named, giving a private assessment of public feeling. Recently, signs advertising US financial support for Palestinian West Bank development projects have been vandalised, one sprayed with the word “Veto” – the fate the Obama administration has in store for the Palestinian UN bid. Regardless of American warnings, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas plans to submit the application for recognition of Palestinian statehood and full UN membership on Friday at the UN General Assembly in New York. A few hundred protesters took to the streets of Ramallah on Thursday after Obama's speech to the gathering the night before. “It was totally disappointing, not only to us but to many people in this world. It was full of double standards,” said Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian politician and activist who ran for the presidency in 2005. Demonstrators contrasted Obama's support for freedom in the Arab world with what they saw as meek words on their struggle for self-determination on land occupied by Israel in 1967. “In reality, when we need them, we find that they are the ones who most conspire against the state of Palestine, against the destiny of the Palestinian people,” said Nazih Qabaha, 30. “We no longer have any faith in US policy. Regardless of who the president is, it is the same policy,” added Qabaha, an employee of the Palestinian Authority which is relying on U.S. funding for around 16 percent of its budget this year. In his speech, Obama reiterated US support for the establishment of a Palestinian state but alluded to his opposition to their direct bid for UN membership – a position Palestinians believe reflects Washington's bias towards Israel. Frustration with US policy is one of the main reasons behind Abbas' UN initiative. Palestinian officials have presented it as an attempt to break the US monopoly over Middle East peace diplomacy by involving other powers. President George H.W. Bush is remembered as the last US leader to exert serious pressure on Israel when he temporarily withheld loan guarantees to press the Israelis for a freeze on settlement building. But that was 20 years ago, at the very outset of a peace process now widely seen as a failure. Exasperation with Obama is compounded by the high hopes Palestinians harboured early on in his presidency that he too was ready to get tough on Israel. He initially called on Israel to halt settlement activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem to smooth peace negotiations. But he then backed off, leaving Abbas in the lurch. The US Congress has threatened to review the roughly $500 million in annual aid Washington gives to the Palestinians if they seek full membership at the United Nations. The funds are spent on everything from rebuilding roads to paying the salaries of the PA's 150,000 employees. Protesters in Ramallah, many of whom work for the PA, said it might be time for Palestinians to rethink their relationship with the United States, even if it meant financial pain.
