Posted on 12/17/2004 8:30:55 AM PST by yonif
Taking active steps towards resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict may reward the Palestinian Authority in more ways than one, according to a report in the New York Times Thursday.
The United States together with European and Arab countries have proposed a potential doubling of pecuniary aid to the struggling Palestinian Authority, should the PA prove it are cooperating towards reducing the bloody conflict between the two nations, American and Palestinian officials told the New York Times.
The aid package would amount to $6 billion to $8 billion, to be allotted over four years, contingent on smooth chairmanship elections on January 9 and a government crackdown on terrorist organizations.
Also, Israel would be required to do away with many of the roadblocks and checkpoints that are scattered throughout the Palestinian territories, restricting the movement of Palestinian civilians and the transportation of goods.
International aid is vital for the Palestinian economy. Donor nations, led by the United States and European Union, provide roughly $1 billion a year in assistance, covering about 60 percent of the annual Palestinian budget, but the Palestinian economy remains in shambles.
The proposed aid package, however, would nearly double the current financial contributions. According to the New York Times, the World Bank has noted that the funding "would be the largest per person international aid program since World War II."
The countries conferred on the aid package during an annual conference of Middle East donor nations in Oslo last week. Participants in the international meeting displayed optimism over recent signs of reconciliation between Israel and the Palestinians following the death of PA chairman Yasser Arafat, and called for further efforts to support the battered Palestinian economy, and encouraging the deadlocked Middle East peace process. The donor countries also hoped to steer the PA onto the right track as Israel prepares to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank.
While the donor countries said that both sides must take further steps to get the peace process back on track, the sense of goodwill toward the new Palestinian leadership was clear.
Prior to the Norway conference, a senior PA Foreign Ministry official, told The Jerusalem Post that the PA would be seeking $400 million to reconstruct its security apparatus, in attempt to restore law and order to the crime-ridden region.
Of that sum, Washington pledged $20 million in direct budgetary support to the PA. This is in addition to the roughly $200 million in indirect assistance to the Palestinians, most of which is channeled through USAID to NGOs, and $3.5 million to help organize and pay for monitoring of the January 9 election for PA chairman.
It is only the second time the US has given money directly to the PA.
Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs William Burns said at the donors conference that the direct US pledge reflected "our confidence in the direction of the PA's reform program."
PLO Chairman and leading chairmanship candidate Mahmoud Abbas has been pushing Hamas and other radical Palestinian groups to agree to a temporary truce with Israel, with mixed results, but a senior Bush administration official told the Times that the persuasion efforts must be followed by a genuine crackdown after the elections.
"Cease-fires are not the answer, but if the Israelis react to the Palestinian cease-fire by easing conditions, and the Palestinians react to that by getting control of security, you can have a kind of virtuous circle that has to be a step forward," he said.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, sounding much more optimistic than he has in previous years past addressed the closing session of the Herzliya Conference, saying that 2005 "can be a year in which we establish the foundation for a long-lasting Israeli-Palestinian agreement. We will act with all our might to ensure that this year of opportunity will not become a year of missed opportunities."
"We stand today before a unique window of opportunity. Who knows when we might have another chance like this in the future?" Sharon said.
However, Abbas said the Palestinians completely reject Sharon's statements, stressing that the Palestinians will never surrender the right of the refugees to return home.
"These statements are unacceptable and completely rejected," he told Al-Jazeera television. "We don't understand how the US has accepted such decisions, which predetermine the fate of the issues of the Palestinian people."
Ping.
More aid for terrorists. Just what we need... right.
I hope American taxpayers are outraged and let the President and Congress know it.
"However, Abbas said the Palestinians completely reject Sharon's statements, stressing that the Palestinians will never surrender the right of the refugees to return home."
Perhaps when all the refugees are dead of natural causes?
With language like that, things will never get better over there.
Besides, the PA runs a horridly unfree economy over there. Any financial aid must be predicated upon economic reforms if there is to be aid at all.
This is one of the most FU clauses of the Arab League yet. They want half of Israel to make yet another Islamic Hell Hole in the Middle East and they want the rest of the Arabs in the prison camps in Arabia to return home... To Israel. Not to the Much much newer than new Palestinian State. No, Palestine is not for "Palstinians".
There is no other intention but the destruction of Israel and every single dime sent to the Arabs will be used for that purpose. With this funding increase, we will be giving the terrorists more money than we give Israel. Not counting the money we give Egypt, and the money we give Saudi Arabia, and the money we give Jordan (the second Palestinian State), or the money we give to Lebanon, or the ruins of it after the Syrians invaded and wiped out the Christians.
We have no foreign policy beyond bleeding tax dollars to dictators. We give far more money to our enemies than we give to our friends, to say nothing of giving those who are declaring Jihad on us M1A2 Abrams tanks, F16 jets and oodles of other fancy toys to kill us with.
Our Foreign Policy is insane.
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