So it comes to this: Israel is cutting off the PA now that Hamas is the PA. The United States is asking for its $50 million back now that Hamas is the PA. Europe (with some exceptions) is hesitant to fork over the big bucks now that Hamas is the PA. So what is Hamas doing? Going out, kaffiyeh in hand, to the Arab states. And here’s what the Arab states are doing, now that Hamas is in charge:
Secretary-General Amr Moussa said foreign ministers from several Arab countries were to meet Monday in Algiers to examine a plan to send about $50 million a month to the Palestinian Authority. A final decision is not expected until Arab leaders meet in a summit next month in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.
The money is part of Palestinian funding the Arab League approved last year – before Hamas’ election victory in January. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have already contributed to the financially strapped Palestinian Authority and more money is on its way, Moussa said.
The $50 million monthly stipend, however, only represents what the Arab League initially pledged give the Palestinians during a summit nearly four years ago, and some Palestinians voiced skepticism that their fellow Arabs would come through.
“Since the Arab summit in Beirut in 2002, the Arab governments decided to give the Palestinians $600 million a year. That never materialized. The Arabs made promises, but never delivered,” said Samir Ghattas, head of the Palestinian Al-Kuds Research Center.
“It the Arabs did not pay (deceased Palestinian President Yasser) Arafat, why should they now pay Hamas?” Ghattas asked.
Noting that Hamas had its roots in the radical Muslim Brotherhood, Ghattas asked: “How can the Arabs give money to a Muslim Brotherhood which threatened them in each and every country. Do they have an interest in encouraging a Muslim Brotherhood movement to take over? The answer is no.”
A senior Palestinian official, who refused to be identified because he did not wish to embarrass fellow Arabs, agreed with Ghattas’ figures.
“The maximum that Arab countries have paid is $100 million of the $600 million they agreed to give,” he told The Associated Press.
But — but — I thought the palestinian cause was the premiere cause of the Arab world. Nothing is more important than establishing a palestinian state! Not Iranian nukes, not the genocide in Sudan, not the war in Iraq — all of these take a back seat to the palestinian problem.
Except, well, when it comes to forking over the cash. Looks like maybe their palestinian brothers — who were thrown out of Jordan, Kuwait, and Iraq (to name only three countries) and are refused citizenship throughout the Arab world — aren’t nearly as important as they are the hammer with which to bash Israel.
But then, anyone who is honest about the situation already knew that. The AP is almost honest here:
The head of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, said Sunday that Arab governments were considering providing the money to make up for the frozen transfers from Israel. Arab governments have not been among the top donors to the Palestinian Authority in the past, and some have failed to give pledged funds.
Wow. A sea change. Of course, then they call Ismail Haniyeh a “pragmatist,” but hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day. You can’t expect an anti-Israel bias to disappear overnight.
As far as I know, Meryl, Jordan does allow Palestinians to become citizens. That doesn’t obviate the main point, of course, which is that the Palestinians are valued by their Arab brothers for, and only for, their value as a weapon against Israel and the west.
My own opinion is that the Palestinians refugees are entitled to the same sympathy and support we give to the displaced Sudeten Germans, eastern Poles, Ionian Greeks and Salonikan Turks, all of whom are also languishging in camps long after…oh, wait.
I think that illustrates the point that Israel could be the best friend the Palestinian people could hope to have. Except that isn’t going to happen. Why? Because not one single ‘leader’ amongst the Palestinians could recognise the fact because they are consumed with blind hatred for Israel. Those that are less blinded know that they have their positions of authority because of the situation with Israel and are loathe to abandon their course. The palestinians need a huge paradigm shift and I just don’t see it coming, at least not for a very long time if ever.
Kay,
The key point, the absolutely crucial point, is that any Pali leader, or any other Pali for that matter, who tried to make some realistic accomodation with Israel would have the life expectancy of a mouse at a cat convention. The militants would kill him in an eyeblink, on the orders of the other “leaders” who enforce the death cult that is Palestinian Nationalism. Thus it has always been, since the days when Hajj Amin Al-Husayni and his brothers were killing off the other heads of notable Palestinian Arab families in the 1920s.
You can see the cowardice of so many of the Western news media over the threats made against them by a few Muslim radicals living in the West over those banal Danish cartoons. Imagine the climate of fear for somebody living surrounded by such savages all the time.
This talk of cutting off the money is good news, I think. Starving the PA of funds seems to me the best way, short of all-out violence, of twisting the PA’s arm into some kind of sensible course of action. If Hamas can’t pony up the gelt for money favoring and welfare handouts that the Palis are accustomed to, they won’t last long at the top of the greasy pole. It may not work, but it’s more hopeful than some absurd form of appeasement of the unappeaseable.