Sunday, March 5, 2006
The Boston Globe reports on the horrors of electing a terror-party to lead a terror-state. Consequences.
US freeze on Hamas aid carries humanitarian price
An unprecedented US government review of aid to Palestinians has frozen all US-funded projects in the West Bank and Gaza, as officials in Washington weigh whether and how they can deliver humanitarian aid without channeling funding through Hamas, the militant group that won January's parliamentary election, or the government Hamas will soon appoint.
International aid groups, many with years of experience carrying out US-funded projects, have expressed alarm at the US policy. They say that trying to deliver humanitarian assistance without any involvement from the Palestinian government is unrealistic on a practical level and could undo years of work building Palestinian health and education systems and other institutions.
The United States Agency for International Development spent $275 million in the West Bank and Gaza last year. For the past decade, the United States has channeled aid to Palestinians through dozens of nonprofit organizations and contractors that build courthouses, schools, roads, and water systems; promote the rule of law and democracy; train health workers, teachers, and judges; award micro-loans to small businesses; and carry out other projects that entail varying degrees of cooperation with Palestinian ministries...
The horror.
The fact: All that aid has allowed a society to develop that elected terrorists and in which a majority supports the most vicious violence against their neighbors -- all without serious consequence. Prosperity and freedom could be theirs, and rather quickly, were it not for some very, very bad choices.
The Palestinian Arabs have been lead to believe they could do anything and still cry victim and keep the spigot of international welfare going. They need to continue to be disillusioned.
But, of course, they'll never blame the right people, themselves. The article ends:
An occupation they reject and do everything possible to make more difficult.
Don't worry UNWRA and ISM will carry on the stirling work as NGOs through which funds will be channeled.
Now imagine if Congress could be appraised of this:
"Why Palestinians Still Live in Refugee Camps"
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_article=960&x_context=7
" It’s not surprising that the PLO vehemently opposed this program – after all, former residents of a refugee camp, now living in a nice home in a new neighborhood, would have a stake in supporting peace and opposing violence, exactly the opposite of the PLO’s strategy.
What is perhaps surprising is that the United Nations also opposed the program, and passed harsh resolutions demanding that Israel remove the Palestinians from their new homes and return them to the squalid camps. For example, UN General Assembly Resolution 31/15 of Nov. 23, 1976: "
"An occupation they reject and do everything possible to make more difficult."
- - - - - - - - - - -
... more to the point: an occupation that has largely ceased to exist - for almost a decade now.
Israel has ceded control over 90 percent of non-Israeli Arabs and their territory in lands captured in 1967.
In response to Arab terror, Israeli soldiers have been forced to RETURN to areas that were already "liberated" from "occupation" - but even so, these are just checkpoints, not a re-occupation or reassertion of sovereignty.
The vast majority of Arab residents of the West Bank - and ALL the Arab residents of Gaza - live, vote, and are governed by the PA.
And they have lived like this for almost a decade now.
Could friends of Israel please stop going along with the sloppy solipsism - born of victimology politics, as you describe - that the "occupation" continues as long as there is no permanent settlement?
Good point.
What the PLO, UNRWA and all the NGOs who support the Palestinians have managed to cultivate is a society of (none-too-passive) passive-aggressives.