Honest-brokering

Wed, 07/01/2009 - 4:29pm

By Christian Brose

A minor request for the Obama administration: Amid your full-court press against Israeli settlements, would you please muster a bit more ire and determination to rectify this absurd situation:

Eighteen months have passed since the Paris donor conference, where members of the international community promised the Palestinian government $1.45 billion in assistance for its 2009 budget. The Palestinian Authority (PA), however, has received less than a quarter of this amount, and Arab governments in particular have fallen short, contributing only $78 million of the $600 million pledged. Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayad has been forced to borrow $530 million from local banks this year in order to pay the salaries of PA employees, who with their families constitute one-quarter of the Palestinian population. When combined with the loss of internal revenue from the Gaza Strip since the Hamas takeover and the continuing Israeli restrictions on West Bank movement, the failure of donors to live up to their commitments threatens the tenuous economic progress the PA has made to date.
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That sounds pretty typical -

by Brett on Wed, 07/01/2009 - 5:20pm

That sounds pretty typical - there have been a number of stories on how the Arab states aside from Saudi Arabia rarely follow through with their entire pledges.

Palestinian Sympathy Fatigue

by courtneyme109 on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 10:28pm

Saudiland pledged a billion bucks. Hit them up.

Hamas won the election

by Seth Edenbaum on Sat, 07/04/2009 - 10:21pm

You backed a coup attempt and Dahlan's thugs are still getting lots of cash from Obama. And of course they're commanded by Keith Dayton.
I guess the theory is pay the military and starve the government. You wouldn't want them to be independent, then they'd be Hamas.

It's not the lies that piss me off, it's the shortsightedness.

Cut off the gravy train

by Boojum on Mon, 07/06/2009 - 10:25am

The Palestinians have recieved more aid per capita than any other people in the world. They should all be living in surburban villas by now. Instead their region is a slum where bad pathologies breed with prolific abandon and which is overseen by a horribly corrupt government. If the world wants to really help the Palestinians, it should cut off the aid and services. If your income is guaranteed, you can steal and screw things up without consequence. Once the Palestinians realize they must fend for themselves, they'll be forced to develop a self supporting economy and be less interested in provoking their neighbor to bomb what they've built.

PS to Mr. Brose: Pass the begging bowl to the Arab states, the ones awash in billions of petro-wealth. Maybe they can donate a gold toilet or two. American tax dollars should be helping Americans, not people who publically celebrated 9-11

The Palestinians have

by J Thomas on Mon, 07/06/2009 - 6:31pm

The Palestinians have recieved more aid per capita than any other people in the world.

Not so. Israelis have received more per capita.

Plus a large part of the aid to palestinians has actually gone to israelis, and part of the rest has been destroyed by israelis.

Just saw a docu the other day

by hesiod on Mon, 07/06/2009 - 12:37pm

Just saw a docu the other day how much of the help from the west hasn't benefited the Palestinians. But it benefited the Israelis since all the aid goods have to be transported stored etc by Israeli companies.
Who benefits from Palestinian buildings that have rebuilded more than 4 time ? It are the Israelis. In the last war plenty of schools factorys crops etc have been destroyed by the isrealis.

Your boys in Ramallah (and Obama's too)

by Seth Edenbaum on Mon, 07/06/2009 - 9:41pm

Joshua Landis{links stripped}

"Who will be appointed the next ambassador to Syria? Two names have been mentioned by Laura Rozen at Foreign Policy.com - Jake Walles and Daniel Kurtzer. They are both career diplomats, but what else do we know of them and who would be more effective?
Jacob Walles is not well known (here is his official bio), but from Googling him one finds that as Consul General in Jerusalem, he was in the thick of the Bush Administration’s efforts to get the PLO to confront Hamas in 2007. See this memo, entitled, “Abbas Coup Talking Points,”
While reporting “The Gaza Bombshell” for Vanity Fair, David Rose acquired an extraordinary trove of documents showing how the U.S. pressured its Palestinian allies to take on Hamas—a strategy that proved disastrous when Hamas staged what appears to have been a pre-emptive coup in Gaza in June 2007.
These “talking points” were left behind in Ramallah by a State Department envoy. Palestinian and American officials say they formed the basis for State Department official Jake Walles’s discussions with Palestinian president and Fatah party leader Mahmoud Abbas in late October or early November 2006. According to the memo, Walles urged Abbas to dissolve the Hamas-led government if Hamas refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist, promising that the U.S. and its Arab allies would strengthen Fatah’s military forces to deal with the likely backlash from Hamas.
Jake Walles explained to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that he would get Western and “Arab” monetary and military aid, as well as political backing if he took on Hamas decisively and created a “new P.A. government” that “fully and clearly accepts the Quartet principles.” When Hamas failed to comply with Abbas’ proposals, Abbas was to “declare emergency rule and form an emergency government” in order to take on Hamas and rule Palestinians.