This is absolutely incredible. Do we have any idea of what our government is doing with our money?
For the first time, the Bush Administration plans to give $150 million in cash directly to the Palestinian Authority (PA) Treasury, as part of a $496.5 million “aid†package, including $410 million for development programs. This added to the $86.5 million for CIA “security training,†which Congress authorized in April 2007…
CIA Palestinian training success is best described by a member of the PA’s Chairman own security unit, – Force 17, officer Abu Yusef: “The operations of the Palestinian resistance would [not] have been so successful and “would not have killed more than 1,000 Israelis since 2000, and defeated the Israelis in Gaza without [American military] trainings,†he boasted in August 2007.
Since the Oslo Accords, the PA received some $14 billion to $20 billion in international aid, according to a 2007 Funding for Peace Coalition (FPC) report to the British Parliament. Each Palestinian received $4,000 to $8,000 per year. In comparison, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), provided $1 billion in humanitarian aid for 2.5 million Darfur refugees from 2003 to 2006 –only $100 per person annually. Moreover, of the $7 billion pledged international aid, only $5 billion were spent to assist more than 5 million Tsunami victims in more than 15 countries on two continents.
The PA received “the highest per capita aid transfer in the history of foreign aid anywhere,†according to former World Bank country director for Gaza and the West Bank, Nigel Roberts. Not surprisingly, hundreds of thousands of Gazans spent more than $300 million in less than two week shopping spree [OK, some of the money was phony –ed.], after Hamas blew up the border with Egypt. Yet, the Palestinian economy is in ruins, Why?
In March 2007, PA Prime Minister and former World Bank official Salam Fayyad, told London’s Daily Telegraph: “No one can give donors that assurance†that funds reach their designated destinations. “Where is all of the transparency in all of this? It’s gone.†Controlling Palestinian finances, Fayyad concluded, is “virtually impossible.†— Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen
You may well ask why don’t their fellow Sunni Arabs, the swimming-in-oil Saudis help them. Didn’t they promise big bucks as part of the Arab League peace proposal back in 2002?
Rather than $660 million in annual aid the Saudis promised in 2002, the kingdom donated only $84 million since then, according to World Bank reports. Other Arab League members, who in 2002 promised $55 million monthly to foster PA economic development, gave even less.
But not because they were stingy. They simply wanted to allocate the funds where they would do the most bad:
Meanwhile, however, the Saudis and the Gulf states funneled hundreds of millions of petrodollars–some raised in government-sponsored telethons –to reward Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Hamas and Palestinian Jihad suicide bombers and fuel the anti-Israel Jihad. Indeed, “Saudi Arabia remains a source of recruits and finances for …Levant-based militants,†said National Intelligence Director J. Michael McConnell, before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, on 5 February 2008.
McConnell should have included USAID on his terror-funding list. A Dec. 2007 USAID audit reported that the mission administering its funds gave money to groups and institutions affiliated with U.S. designated terrorist organizations, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad. It warned: “Without additional controls, the mission could inadvertently provide support to entities or individuals associated with terrorism.â€
Real economic activity in the territories barely exists any more. The biggest source of income is the PA payroll, which is doled out to the members of the various clans and militias according to whatever it costs to buy their support.
The Palestinians, it seems, are pinning their hopes on the day that they will finally succeed in reversing the outcome of the 1948 war, at which time all the wealth of Israel will be theirs.
In the meantime, their creativity and initiative are focused on destruction and death, rather than building industries and infrastructure.
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