$50 million last month to the Palestinian Authority (y/our tax dollars at work)

MOWBRAY: Pyrrhic Palestinian victory?

U.N. vote could have unintended consequences

by Joel Mowbray

JERUSALEM

When the Palestinian Authority (PA) was pushing last month to receive $50 million in direct funding to help alleviate its dire fiscal situation, it received critical support from a seemingly unlikely source: the right-wing government of Israel.

Israel quietly supported the Obama administration's plan to deliver $50 million in direct assistance to cover the PA's general budget shortfalls just three weeks before the Palestinians are planning to short-circuit the peace process by forcing a vote for statehood at the United Nations.

Though the timing certainly is curious, such a move actually fits recent a recent pattern. Since the death of Yasser Arafat, one of the staunchest defenders of continued U.S. support for the PA has been the Jewish state. While the logic is clear that the PA is a lesser evil than its rival Hamas, a designated terrorist organization, Israel's steadfast backing has enabled the PA to receive billions of dollars in recent years without addressing rampant corruption or ending its widespread incitement against Israel.

With the Palestinians reportedly poised to force a vote for statehood at the U.N. Security Council next week that would embarrass the United States and be seen as a direct assault on Israel, the PA's smooth sailing in Washington could soon end abruptly. Its standing in Washington already has been tenuous because Congress this year finally has made the ongoing Palestinian incitement against Israel a priority.

Several delegations comprising roughly one-fifth of Congress visited the Middle East during the August recess, and each group delivered a unified message to Palestinian leaders that pursuing the U.N. statehood vote, the first round of which is now scheduled for Sept. 23, would seriously damage relations and could result in a cutoff of aid. Obama administration officials have delivered similar messages in recent weeks.

Yet even with the PA's unyielding position that it will force a vote at the U.N., President Obama on Aug. 30 quietly signed the presidential waiver required to release money directly to the PA. Though signing the waiver has been routine going back to the George W. Bush administration, the lack of public congressional outrage has not been routine.

This year, top House members on the foreign-aid spending panel, Rep. Kay Granger, Texas Republican, and Rep. Nita M. Lowey, New York Democrat, did not even issue a press release. Even with the United States mired in record deficits and politicians scouring for spending cuts, the U.S. giving $50 million to cover the PA's general budget shortfalls attracted barely any media attention.

What should have garnered media scrutiny is not just the expenditure of the $50 million, but how the Palestinians will spend it. Although U.S. taxpayer funds do not officially cover Palestinian broadcasting — and officially cannot — the fungible nature of money means that U.S. taxpayers indirectly make possible rabid and unrelenting Palestinian incitement against Israel....

 

 

 

Comments

[Avinoam Ben Dor]

I stumbled on to this article when reading an article by Daniel Greenfield. I see that there are no comments to this article. What does it mean? That the American public does not know what its Administration is doing with good taxpayers' money? or That they know, but don't give a hoot about the way it is spent? I've been trying for years to wake up my American friends to send letters to their Congressmen/Women to stop financing Arab terrorist organisations like the PLO, Hamas and others. I guess people really do not care what is going on right outside their doorstep. I get this notion by reading the news about the rampant antisemitism on US campuses, the growing influence of Islam in the US and the lack of support Israel gets from Jewish groups in America. These Leftist groups like J-Street think that by appeasing the Arabs and Islam, they will be accepted and spared the hatchet when Sharia is the Law of the land. These ignorant Jews have forgotten that just 70 years ago the whole world gave up on them when Hitler decided to annihilate the Jewish race of the face of the earth. God save us from our friends for from our enemies we know how to defend ourselves. I recommend to all readers of this Blog to read: The Secret War Against the Jews by John Loftus.