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.
There's not a reason in the world to ever send terrorists one more red freaking cent...fools.
Let me know -- I'm out of pocket through much of the afternoon (damn deadlines), but I'll be online tonight...
Many people here said that after the election, we'd see the "real" Bush.
Well, here he is. I hope everyone's happy.
Bush is smarter than you think. Notice that he gave it to the Utility companies only. So there is no way for Fatah or the PLO to get there hands on it. Second it silences our critics who have been saying we are doing nothing for the situation but making it worse. Next, it is the kind of gesture over there that nobody can criticize. And lastly, it diverts attention from the war in Iraq.
I smell Karl's prints on this one.
This doesn't make much sense to me.
I'm a lot more ticked off with the 1.3 BILLION in foreign aid we will send Egypt next year.
Our 1st Mexican POTUS...and the father of the new Palestinian Terror State! /s
I must have missed that part. Where does the article say that?
Oh, well then I guess that makes it alright /sarc. If that is in fact the case, let the utilities decide if they want to wait for payment or cut off the power. As long as they have funds to promote acts of terror, they have funds to pay for electrical.
Sheesh!!
Why is our money going to fund the terrorist Palestinians, one of the last places in the world our hard earned tax dollars should go?
If they are so short of money, maybe they could get back some of the billions Arafat stole from them (and us)? Or maybe they should just go out and set up a workable country like the rest of us, instead of a 60 year old refugee camp full of terrorists on the dole? ... or maybe they should just ask their filthy rich Arab oil buddies for a loan?
It's bad enough our government practically throws our money away for worthless social programs and endless pork barreling. It's worse when they give it to killers like these who turn around and use it to buy weapons to kill us!
You got a point, I guess its harder to make bombs in the dark.
Why doesn't he take the billions of US dollars Arafat salted away in Swiss Banks and give that to them. This is typical political crap.
I wonder how much of the $20 large, can round-trip into Kofi's back pocket??? Hmmmmm!
I could have used 250,000 of that, God knows it would have been money better spent.
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"The money is to help pay utility services, including the payment of arrears to Israeli utility companies."
This was the last line of the article above. Notice the balanced approach. Yes, I sense Karl's or even the Presidents savvy hear.
Don't underestimate the President, you may be surprized later.
Given that fact that they're currently looking for a $1.5 billion per year package, most of it from the US, and that the post "aid" resettlement costs for refugees is estimated at upwards of $20 billion, this is pocket change.
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