Posted on 12/08/2004 8:09:37 AM PST by yonif
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 economy.
The $20 million in direct aid was to be announced during an international donors conference for the Palestinians in Oslo.
It is part of a push to help the Palestinians before their Jan. 9 election, at which President Bush hopes the Palestinians will elect a democratic leader willing to negotiate peace with Israel.
"The upcoming Palestinian elections have made a functioning Palestinian Authority more important than ever," the official said. "The United States has a national security interest in helping to end the ongoing violence and terror in the Middle East and to make progress toward the president's June 24, 2002, vision of peace."
The money is to help pay utility services, including the payment of arrears to Israeli utility companies.
This is a bad decision. The PLO got Arafats money which was in the billions. Arafats wife got some millions but the PLO is not poor. This is a PR statement from the White House to the Arabs who say we always side with the Israelis. It is a waste of money, Al Queda wants us dead and no amount of PR is going to change that.
I agree, words fail me, thank heavens you eloquently stated it like it is!!
Unbelievable!
When did I enter the twilight zone?
The only things we should be sending to those Palestinian dogs are BULLETS, BOMBS, DEATH, and DESTRUCTION! Maybe unleash a few bio-engineered plague germs into their filthy, crowded warrens to make them suffer even more, as retribution for all the suffering they have caused others.
$20 million indeed! "War on Terror" INDEED! Those animals are our MORTAL ENEMIES, and our government is sending them aid and comfort??? This is where my tax dollars are going - to aid MURDEROUS ARAB FILTH??? For the love of Pete, those animals DANCED IN THE STREETS ON 9/11!
No wonder they think of us as weak and worthy of contempt.
Mods, if this is too harsh, forgive me. This news enrages me to no end.
I'm sorry, but I must vehemently disagree.
They should received sand, some flea-infested camels with the mange, and a big Israeli-American boot in their a$$. They were offered almost everything they asked of the Israelis, and refused so they could continue slaughtering innocents. Screw them.
Dream on.
Is this the Widow Arafat's alimony payment?
bttt
Make that HELL NO!
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