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Bruce Kessler of the Democracy project blog has given us a round up of both commentary and analysis about the results of the one day donor ‘telethon’ in Paris to raise commitments for a non-existent Palestinian state. While, the donor pledges exceeded the requested amounts of $5.6 billion by another $1.8 billion, many of the Arab country pledges will likely not be honored despite the trillions in petro-dollars sloshing around in their sovereign wealth funds. They rather build eco friendly artificial islands in the Persian Gulf than throw more money down the rat hole of the Palestinian cause. After all, the Palestinian leadership is noteworthy for their kleptomania and their support of terrorism, whether the so-called moderates led by PLO-FATAH Presdident Abbas of the ‘rump duchy of Ramallah” or the Jihadis in beggared Gaza. Kessler draws attention to a recent CAMERA study identified in a Dan Pipes comment that shows a close correlation between donor aid to the Palestinians and terrorism. After each dollop of dopey foreign donor aid, the Palestinians go on a murderous path, except for their leaders who stuff dough in their offshore investment funds and businesses. They are crazy like a fox, compared to the silly EU, UK and US ‘geese. Why don’t we simply get their Arab Muslim brethren in the ummah to go first and pony up their commitments. At least then we’ll know who funding terrorism against Israel and America.
Can $7.4 Billion Buy Palestinian Sanity?,
Bruce Kessler, Democracy Project blog, December 18, 2007
As the New York Times reports, international donors pledged $1.8 billion more to the Palestinians then even the $5.6 billion they had hoped for.
“Without this support, without the payment of aid that will allow the Palestinian treasury to fulfill its role, we will be facing a total catastrophe in the West Bank and Gaza,” Mr. Abbas said.
Meanwhile, there’s little evidence the $7.4 billion will accomplish any more than the over $10 billion of aid the Palestinians have previously squandered and sequestered in Pal leaders’ Swiss bank accounts. As Khaled Abu Toameh wrote in the Jerusalem Post:
This money is mainly designed to keep Fatah in power and prevent Hamas from taking over the West Bank. And unless the PA changes its rhetoric and starts promoting real peace and coexistence with Israel, the millions of dollars are not going to create a new generation of moderate Palestinians.
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair recognized this when he was reported in the Financial Times telling the donors’ conference:
“Having a state is not just a question of territory,” Mr Blair insisted in an interview with the Financial Times. “It is about the nature of what happens inside the state . . . So the single most important thing I can do to help the Palestinians is tell them the truth. And the truth is that there will not be a [Palestinian] state unless the nature of that state is clear.”…
Mr Blair was convinced that today’s Paris conference marked the first move by the Palestinians to spell out how they will manage security: “[They] will produce a comprehensive reform and development plan. It is a credible programme.”
However, there was no security program announced by the Palestinians, just plans for spending more on its bloated bureaucracy. Moreover, the Pal leadership has not even carried out its public and private pledges to negotiate mutual accomodations promised by Israeli Prime Minister Olmert and West Bank PA Prime Minister Abbas.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has instructed Israeli negotiators to work on sealing an agreement with the Palestinians as quickly as possible, but is dismayed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has not passed down to his negotiating team the same pliable positions he has discussed with Olmert in private, a government official said Monday.
Apparently, Arab countries which have promised funds to the Palestinians have a better reality quotient than Western donors. As the New York Times’ report mentions:
Many countries do not fulfill pledges that they make at such conferences. Egypt and other Arab countries are known for pledging funds to the Palestinian Authority that they do not deliver.
In the face of reality, relatively few Western commentators are willing to expose the emperor’s new clothes. One is Daniel Pipes, of the Middle East Forum, who notes:
A topsy-turvy understanding of war economics has prevailed in Israel since the Oslo negotiations began in 1993. Rather than deprive their Palestinian enemies of resources, Israelis have been following Shimon Peres’s mystical musings, and especially his 1993 tome, The New Middle East, to empower them economically. As I wrote in 2001, this “is tantamount to sending the enemy resources while fighting is still under way - not a hugely bright idea.”
Rather than further funding Palestinian bellicosity, Western states, starting with Israel, should cut off all funds to the Palestinian Authority.
Pipes steers us to a study by the respected Middle East media truth-tank CAMERA. CAMERA points out the close correlation of international aid to the Palestinians with increases in their terrorist activities over the period from 2000 to 2007, as shown in these graphs:
Statistics on Palestinian homicides and foreign aid to Gaza and the West Bank reveal that as aid increased to the Palestinian government, so too did the numbers of people (both Israeli and Palestinian) killed by Palestinian militants. At the same time there was an inverse correlation between an increase in foreign aid and Palestinian economic growth.
Camera doesn’t leap from correlation to cause-and-effect, but does point out that at least there’s a caution there which should be recognized, and not swept away by wishful self-delusions:
These statistics do not mean that foreign aid causes violence; but they do raise questions about the effectiveness of using foreign donations to promote moderation and combat terrorism…. The past correlation between increased aid and increased violence during the previous Intifada, and research questioning commonly held beliefs about the roots of terrorism and radicalism, demand more discussion in the media.
AND, one should add, among Western politicians, seemingly more interested in again trying to buy off sworn terrorists than in squeezing them out of the power and influence they gain from aid infusions.
— Bruce Kesler | Dec. 18, 2007 | 1:53 PM
