PA National Unity Government an Exercise in Magic - Steven Erlanger
A national unity government is a clever idea, but the whole exercise [is like] a magician wooing an audience desperately hoping to suspend disbelief. (International Herald Tribune)
Is Financial Aid from the West Supporting Palestinian Terrorists?
Jonathan D. Halevi
In order to encourage donating countries to transfer as much money as possible to finance its budget, the PA is striving to magnify the image of a "humanitarian crisis" in the territories. However, without proper supervision, the West's financial aid might directly or indirectly find its way to funding Palestinian terror.
(JCPA-Hebrew, 27Sep06)
1 comment:
There is no doubt that the unity government may fail, and money should not be rushed in, and certainly not blindly thrown at them, because it seems likely it will end up, at least some of it, in the wrong hands. But there is no doubt that real, or staged, a humanitarian crisis will be shown, and blamed on the West. There are no easy answers and it surely is not black and white. But if we are to err, right now we should probably err on the side of giving, because we do not have the credibility to be too demanding when they start showing dying children from lack of food and medicines. So we will have to support their attempts at this joint government, even though it may inevitably lead sometimes, to films of their youth dying with explosives strappped to their chests. Our hardline in the pastr with the Palestineans, led to calls, unjustly, and unavoidably from the likes of Bin Laden, that we were helping cause their crisis in support of Israel, and used that as an excuse against us. Interestingly, you see militant Islamists citing Iraq as another cause celebre, but not Afghanistan. They know that our efforts their were well deserved, and supported by the world. We would have more ammunition for our much needed hard lines now with Iran and the Palestineans "unity" government if we had stuck to actually fighting terrorists, instead of our distractions elsewhere.
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