Free Republic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration on Wednesday announced it was giving $20 million in direct aid to the Palestinian Authority to help it through a financial crisis. A senior Bush administration official said it hoped the aid would encourage additional donations from other countries "at a time when the Palestinian Authority is in desperate need of budget support to pay its bills, maintain stability and allow it to focus on the larger question of governing." The Palestinian Authority is facing a severe financial crisis due to falling tax revenues during four years of violence which has paralyzed the Palestinian...

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - Palestinians are mocking and laughing at American casualties in Iraq in their press and elsewhere, an independent Israeli media watchdog group said on Tuesday. Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) Director Itamar Marcus said that while the Palestinians have been criticizing America in their media for years, the hatred has recently been ratcheted up. Established in 1996, PMW monitors and analyzes Palestinian Arabic language media. "[The Palestinians] have been condemning America since 1997," said Marcus in a telephone interview. "Anti-American cartoons mocking American dead [have] reached a new level of hatred." In a cartoon printed in the Palestinian Authority's...