As I said yesterday, Iran is there to pick up the slack if the EU and US donations to the PA dry up.
Natan Sharansky says the election was not an example of democracy; I agree. Ba’athists were forbidden to run in Iraq. The Taliban was forbidden to run in Afghanistan. The Exception Clause allowed Hamas terrorists to run in the PA elections.
“Democracy isn’t hocus-pocus; it’s a process. An election between a terrorist organization that wants to destroy the State of Israel and a corrupt dictatorship that does not care about helping its own people is not democracy.”
Shocker: The president of Russia says Hamas must recognize Israel.
Something you won’t see in the mainstream media: The PA owes Israel $47 million in electric bills. When that gets deducted from the tax revenues, watch for the howling about stealing palestinian funds.
Sharansky is of course correct, but apparently Bush only read the book jacket and skipped to the end.
The key is that the Palestinians must be made to pay a price for their intransigence. So long as the World Community (TM) is going to keep bailing them out, they have no incentive to stop hating and killing, and in fact every incentive to keep doing so.
When Scott McClellan gets up and says that Hamas does not represent the Palestinians after this landslide win, we are in for more apologetics and perpetuating the conflict at all costs.
Bill just introduced in Congress to 86 the aid for PA, PLO, and UNRWA.
On the brighter side (?), the US and the EU combined gave the the PA, PLO and UNRWA over $1 billion last year alone. Iran may be raking in the dough from oil sales, but even without sanctions I doubt they have $1 billion a year to throw Hamas’ way on top of their obligations to Hezbullah, Islamic Jihad ($110 million last year) and the Shiite insurgents in Iraq.