I always knew the AP was filled with some potententially great comedy writers, but they didn’t really “put me on the floor” until tonight’s article on the jockeying around about aid payments to the new Hamas-led Palestinian Authority:
Europe is the largest donor to the Palestinian Authority, which had a $1.96 billion budget last year. About one-third of aid goes to salaries and the rest to rehabilitate Palestinians’ war-shattered infrastructure.
Badda-bing, badda-boom!
[What did you expect them to say - to the Swiss bank accounts of the leadership?-ed. It's called recycling.]
I am willing to pay for moving the UN to Jerusalem and building the building there.
Declare it an international city so Hamas can’t impose the dhimmi tax as they said they would.
Neutral ground, lots of jobs and upgraded infrastructure.
Win-win.
Now Roger, everyone knows that the widows and orphans in Paleostine need guns and ammo. Somebody has to provide the dough to make that happen.
Snarkiness aside, the EU have been willing dupes. Anyone with a grain of sense, even Javier Solana, understand what happens with the EU money. And the rest of us understand why the EU gives it: it’s cheaper than being bombed, and it’s cheaper than replacing 747s.
Surfing around these last few days, the last budget I read said, 1.02 billion dollars. Now it looks like it is pushing 2 billion. I read that %60 is handed out in cash, with no receipt. I didn’t think anyone could top the criminal thieving nexus of Massachusetts politicians and their contractor and union friends in digging dirt and pouring concrete, but I was wrong. Or, maybe, the Palis haven’t figured out how to scam even with a paper trail. Anyways, the cash keeps flowing so long as the people are miserable, and the government is at war with Israel. If the Palestinians were peaceful and had a thin, shopkeeper economy, they’d get no money because they’d be off the world’s radar screen. So the mau-mauing will continue because it is profitable, kind of like that old National Lampoon cover where the revolver was pointing at the dog, and underneath the caption, “Buy This Magazine, Or We Will Shoot This Dog.” Or reporter, or Arab worker stiff, or Jew. Take your pick.
The EU payed off, people still got blown off.
Roger:
Wonderful topic.
The Journal had an article on it yesterday.
Get this from cited AP article:
“So far, $60 million have been withheld, and in the past three months, only Saudi Arabia has transferred money to pay salaries a total of $15.4 million, said the Palestinian deputy finance minister, Jihad Wazir.
The government is to pay salaries to its 137,000 workers Thursday.
“If salaries are unpaid, I think that will create a very serious crisis,” Wazir said.
So far fetched, one is mystified that these hoodlums get away with it.
While the whole issue of Palestine/Hamas is front burner for the media, I watch these murdering stiffs being interviewed on the NewsHour, like Saeb Erkat, and think back to all the lies he told in the 90s to prop up Arafat, to placate the media; the script the same, the faces the same, the garbage they spout the same. I am appalled still.
Roger,
In my line of work the relationship of the “Palestinians” to their EU supporters (and to us, inexplicably) is called “hostile dependency.”
Like that of the teenager pushing forty who still lives at home, and spouts Chomsky at the dinner table, berates his captive audience (parents) for their work “for the man” (which pays for his dinner), all the while complaining about his mother’s cooking.
Jamie Irons
Like the detective in the old Dashiell Hammet story reading a sign over a Tijuana saloon, I read that excerp from AP and counted eight lies — starting with “donor” for bribes and protection money — before I started to get a migraine and quit. Now that the thugs of Hamas have displaced the thugs of Fatah I can’t look at the “Palestinean Authority” as anything but a tissue of lies. There isn’t any Palestine, and it certainly has no legitimate authority as a state.
Note that this figure is very near (and possibly in excess of) the annual GDP of the “palestinian authority”.
Haven’t we learned anything from our own welfare fiascos about the futility of trying to buy people out of poverty? It just does not work that way.
Steve White,
I don’t think the EU have been dupes. They don’t care about being bombed per se, they care about oil. They’re trying to buy goodwill among Arabs because they need the oil. They don’t really care at all what the Palestinians do with it. Think of it as an extra Arab tax for the oil. It’s cheap at twice the price.
Ray,
I don’t particularly see why any state is legitimate. The British nobility rules Britain because their ancestors killed the natives’ ancestors. Why does that make it legitimate? Every state ultimately rests on the use of thuggish force. The Palestinians have had their election and they’ve voted for the thugs they want. Just like the Germans did in the Thirties. It’s only because we don’t want to believe it that we continue to avert our eyes.
Wichita Boy,
Well, you can argue about the precise meaning of the word “legitimacy” until the cows come home, but there is a difference in kind between states such as Britain and the “state” of Palestine.
Lee Harris pointed out in his book, _Civilization and Its Enemies_, that historically all states did rest on the use of force against other states. Force determined all the physical boundaries, at the very least.
In this sense, the “Palestinian state” is purely honorary. In contrast to thousands of years of warring humans deciding who owned which piece of land, in this particular case, statehood was been granted by “international consensus” as a feel-good gesture.
It was not earned.
WichitaBoy,
re: your response to Ray – As all clear-thinkers know, you are correct. But this leads down the “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” argument.
The difference is in the democratic elections that the Pali’s held. Now we know (If “know” is possible in this state of Media affairs) that this is not a snapshot of the latest Pali thug for the western-world approval. This is their election, what do we say about it? Give them time to adjust to the 20th Century? (No, that wasn’t a mistake) I suspect kicking the can down the road is what we will see from our leaders in the West (and I include GW). I have no problem with kicking the can – as long as you have a plan for shooting it when it clears your foot….if it comes back at you.
Hey, like Krauthammer says, at least this vote was honest.
Everyone has known for years that Arafat was a murdering thief and Fatah was corrupt. But did they force him to clean up his act? Hell no. In fact when Bush failed to have the old degenerate act as a “partner in peace” people were outraged. I mean after all doesn’t Bush know that we are all supposed to kiss up to the Noble Prize winner?
Then Arafat dies and low and behold Fatah implodes as crime families often do when the Don passes.
If Fatah had been forced to clean up its act years ago maybe they would have won this election. But nope, time to move on.
The Widow Arafat’s shoe bill alone could pay for gajillions of suicide belts. And how much are they spending on the search for Arafat’s killers? OJ on retainer?
i just read this article and i have to agree with you my friend, you’re absolutely right
Fantastic article covering some points I really needed some good usability info for.