Foreign donors have just pledged $7.4 billion in aid to the Palestinian Authority. This is intended to ameliorate poverty, build infrastructure, and ultimately reduce violence.
How has this strategy worked in the past? Steven Stotsky, writing for CAMERA, presents a picture that is not terribly encouraging. It seems that homicides by Palestinians, both in terrorism against Israelis and in factional fighting are closely correlated to aid given to the Palestinian Authority.
The following graph plots the number of Israelis and Palestinians killed by Palestinian terrorists and the amount of aid received by the PA from 2000 – 2007. The murder data is shown for the year after the aid was received, in which the correlation is almost perfect.
The going rate seems to be about one murder for every $1.2 million. At this rate, we can expect nearly 6200 murders for our $7.4 billion.
Does this prove anything? Of course not. There are lots of reasons for the ups and downs in Palestinian productivity, and foreign aid is only one of them.
As is often said, “Past performance is no guarantee of future results”, but it certainly helps to evaluate an investment.
Technorati Tags: terrorism, Palestinians
The linking of donor aid to the number of murders seems to me on the surface a dubious enterprise.
What is however significant is that the donor aid does not lead not only to significant reductions in violence, but significant change in regard to violent, racist Palestinian anti- Semitic propaganda.
The Palestinians simply take the money , or rather steal the money and use it as they wish. They do not change their behavior in any real way for it.
Therefore my sense is despite all his good intentions, and his promises at linking Palestinian aid to their changing their behavior , Tony Blair is probably not going to succeed at his job.
The Palestinians denial of Israel is beyond money even beyond a concern for their own well- being. It is a kind of ‘sickness’ and no one seems to have any idea of how to cure it.