Dhimmedia has this huge story right under their noses, and they don't see it at all. All they see is another poorpalestinian sob story. Consider this AP report: Gazans poor relations as investors meet
BETHLEHEM, West Bank - Gaza's business people were the poor relations at a Palestinian investors' conference on Thursday, chasing backers but struggling to find any willing to risk their capital before a yearlong blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory is lifted.More than 100 conference participants, or almost one in 10, came from Gaza. An entire session was dedicated to the territory which has been virtually cut off from the world since the Islamic militant group Hamas seized control by force last June.
However, the big money — hundreds of millions of dollars from Qatar and Saudi Arabia — passed them by.
"The only hope we have comes after the lifting of the embargo," said Faisal Shawwa, who has resorted to smuggling raw materials for his pharmaceuticals factory through tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border.
Gaza's private sector has been all but wiped out by the closure, imposed by Israel and Egypt after the Hamas takeover.
Tens of thousands of jobs were lost because most imports and exports are banned, except for shipments of humanitarian supplies. Israel has increasingly restricted fuel and electricity in hopes of halting Palestinian rocket fire on Israeli border communities.
The moderate Palestinian government in the West Bank says it won't negotiate with its Hamas rivals until they step aside, but can't be seen as ignoring the 1.4 million residents of the impoverished territory.
The international community supports the boycott of Hamas, but has voiced growing concern about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza. Despite the grim prospects, the Gazans were invited to the conference and even asked to present projects.
The conference has not yielded results, said Azzam Shawwa, general director of the Al Quds Bank in Cairo. "All we heard here so far is emotional talk about Gaza and solidarity with Gaza and investment with Gaza," Shawa said. "There has been nothing concrete."
Gaza businessman Mamon Abushahla said the Gaza delegation prepared $180 million worth of investments that he believes are feasible, even during the blockade. The projects included fish farms, recycling and agriculture.
Abushahla said that if the situation gets worse, he might return to Britain, where he spent much of his adult life.
Many Gaza business people have already emigrated, said Faisal Shawwa, who heads an 180-member association of Gaza companies with assets of more than $1 million. Fifteen members have left and many others would follow if they could sell their assets, said Shawwa, whose construction companies stand idle.
Israel did not send an official delegation.
Earlier, the World Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, a U.S. government agency, presented plans to offer political risk insurance to Palestinian businesses, in hopes of encouraging foreign investment.
If you've been following this with me, you know that
* The statement released Tuesday by Deputy Secretary Robert Kimmit of the U.S. Department of the Treasury (before he left Washington to "lead the Presidential Delegation to Bethlehem") didn't mention anything whatsoever about Gaza. Not once.
In contrast to what the American government isn't telling us, we got the real scoop yesterday, the actual truth - that Arabs from the Gaza strip were participating in this conference - from the Palestine News Network. First, wrap your mind around that, and then we'll move on.
Now you might well ask how it is that the American government is trying to convince American businesses to invest in the GAZA STRIP (Intel, Cisco and Coca-Cola are already on board). Two reasons this is insane: 1. Gaza is controlled by HAMAS, which is designated by the State Department as an FTO, a Foreign Terrorist Organization), and 2. Gaza is a Jew-free zone. That is, it is illegal for Jews to enter the Gaza strip. And it has been so ever since the Israeli expulsion/retreat from Gaza in August 2005. Read the sign if you don't believe me.
So if you remember the disengagement/expulsion/retreat, then you remember that it was Jews Only. Arab Muslims, Arab Christians, Druze and whoever else lived there were not required to evacuate; it didn't matter if they were Israeli citizens or not. Okay, you got that? Totally reprehensible. Actual ethnic cleansing of Jews. And no one mentioned it and no one gave a damn. And the Jews even had to dig up the dead and remove them as well, for fear of what the Arabs would do if there was no one to guard the Jewish cemetery.
This is absolute truth; I blogged it every step of the way. You see, Gaza had to be utterly Jew-free before the palestinians would accept the gift of it, and of course they gave nothing to Israel in exchange. They just proceeded to torch the synagogues that were left behind and to destroy the greenhouses that were purchased for them, for their use, for their jobs, for their economic development, at a cost of $14 million, paid by American Jewish philanthropists.
Sorry to "go off" on that, but it's part of what pisses me off so.
Now to the other, equally reprehensible, facet of this Palestine Investment Conference taking place in Bethlehem, completely orchestrated by the American government.
After Israel's "withdrawal" from Gaza, the palestinians elected HAMAS in a remarkable landslide in January 2006, and then the following summer HAMAS took full control of the Gaza strip in a bloody coup.
Hamas and Fatah may have passed the point of no return. The unprecedented viciousness of the renewed fighting between the rival Palestinian factions in Gaza makes any new cease-fire difficult to envision. Gangs have tossed enemies alive off 15-story buildings, shot one another's children and burst into hospitals to finish off wounded foes lying helplessly in bed. It is beginning to feel like civil war. Over three days, at least 70 Palestinians were killed, and 180 more were wounded, as Hamas declared control over northern Gaza.Here they are in what was formerly Abu Mazen's PA office.
The U.S. took the official position that since HAMAS is a Foreign Terrorist Organization (#12 on a list of 42 at the State Department) we ought to "isolate" HAMAS and encourage the rest of the world community to do so. But there was an interesting loophole (see my post, Your federal government at work ... for Palestinians).
In April 2006, the federal government, in fact the Department of the Treasury, had had this to say:
The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has determined that Hamas, a terrorist entity whose property and interests in property are blocked under three separate OFAC-administered economic sanctions programs, has a property interest in the transactions of the Palestinian Authority. Accordingly, pursuant to the Global Terrorism Sanctions Regulations, 31 C.F.R. Part 594, the Terrorism Sanctions Regulations, 31 C.F.R. Part 595, and the Foreign Terrorist Organizations Sanctions Regulations, 31 C.F.R. Part 597, U.S. persons are prohibited from engaging in transactions with the Palestinian Authority unless authorized, and may not transfer, pay, withdraw, export or otherwise deal in any assets in which the Palestinian Authority has an interest unless authorized.
Key words? "Unless Authorized." Hmm. And then comes the real clincher (same link, same document)
Consistent with current foreign policy, certain transactions otherwise prohibited ... are being authorized ... to facilitate limited transactions by U.S. persons with the Palestinian Authority.
Finding this out last month - two full years after it "happened" - and thinking that the loophole only pertained to Abu Mazen's Palestinian Authority, I was furious -- not only were "certain [otherwise prohibited] transactions" being authorized, they were being encouraged, promoted and assisted throughout the American government. I was furious that the U.S. was not only directly funding the Palestinian Authority, but was "in the business of promoting doing business with the the Palestinians." And that was when I first found out about this Palestine Investment Conference in Bethlehem that is taking place right now.
I've also been beside-myself-furious that the notices for the conference proclaim that it was to take place in Bethlehem, PALESTINE, a country that doesn't even exist! I even found that same notice on a US GOVT website. But that pales, absolutely pales, against the fact that GAZA is included, and it very much seems that our government - at least in the person of Deputy Secretary Robert Kimmit of the Treasury Department - doesn't even mention that fact, even in their most obscure "statements." And now it's a fait accompli. Our government is including in their warm embrace the Arabs in Hamastan, in the Gaza strip, in the Jew-free Gaza strip. It effing-un-effing believable.
And Dhimmedia is either completely stupid or in cahoots with the players, so no one's asking questions, and I can't even get anybody interested in this story at all.
So, just to sum up... America is giving palestinians $550 million of our tax dollars this year alone, and is going all out to see that American businesses do business with palestinian Arabs, including Arabs in Gaza who may or may not be HAMAS! And what makes it even more gut-wrenching is that they're holding this conference and doing this business in a Jew-free zone, which the palestinians claim is a country, but is not. The United States can't complain or object because we're the ones doing it! AAUGH.
And the public doesn't know any of this, the media is empathizing with the enemy, and the Congress isn't even worth talking to at this point, because 1) they're utterly lame and 2) it doesn't matter what they legislate since the Feds just go ahead and "authorize" what Congress has "otherwise prohibited."
I have no idea what we can do about this, but I'll be damned if I'm going to just sit here and listen to how HAMAS thirsts for my blood, watch them kill Jews in Israel every other day, and do nothing about the fact that MY GOVERNMENT is dealing with these people and HELPING them to flourish.
It's indecent, it's illegal, it's sickening, it's corrupt, it's beyond the pale.
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