Posted on 05/25/2005 10:44:18 AM PDT by TheOtherOne
Bush to Steer More Aid Directly to Palestinian Authority as Abbas Visits Washington
Published: May 25, 2005 WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush plans to steer more money directly to the Palestinian Authority, congressional aides and a Bush administration official said Wednesday as Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas began three days of meetings with White House officials and congressional leaders.
Most U.S. aid to the Palestinians has previously gone to private relief organizations out of concerns about corruption under the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Abbas wants aid funneled to the authority, which he heads, as a show of U.S. confidence in his leadership, said Edward Abington, a retired U.S. diplomat who advises the Palestinians.
One of the aides said they expected Bush to announce that several tens of millions of dollars would go to the authority. The aide and the others spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement has not yet been made.
Abbas meets with Bush at the White House on Thursday. Direct assistance to the authority is allowed only if the president waives existing law.
The move could upset some members of Congress who say they still do not believe the authority should be trusted with U.S. assistance.
Congress has provided $200 million overall for the Palestinians for this year, and Bush has requested another $150 million for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has already said most of that money would be channeled through the Palestinian Authority for specific projects.
Over the last two years, the Palestinian Authority has received several million dollars directly from the Bush administration to pay utility bills and for other expenses.
Abbas was spending most of Wednesday meeting with House and Senate members, before seeing Vice President Dick Cheney and Rice in the evening.
Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh told reporters the Palestinian leader was warmly received Wednesday by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and other Senate leaders. He said Abbas highlighted the importance of an immediate return to the road map, which calls for establishment of a Palestinian state, and asked Frist for economic support to boost the ailing Palestinian economy.
During his U.S. visits, Abbas will point to a truce he secured with militant groups and reforms he made in his government. In return, officials say he will ask for intensified U.S. pressure on Israel to return to the negotiating table
"We want a clear American position with regard to implementing the road map and we want economic support," Abbas told reporters after arriving in Washington on Tuesday.
The internationally backed road map peace plan has been long stalled with both sides, Israel and the Palestinians, blaming each other for the deadlock.
Neither side has fulfilled their obligations.
Abbas meets with Bush on Thursday, the highlight of a tightly packed schedule of visits with lawmakers, Jewish and Arab American leaders, and senior government officials.
The Palestinians have several grievances, mainly Israel's continued expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and their reluctance to resume peace negotiations with the Palestinians.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said his government will complete its plans to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements this summer before considering a return to the negotiating table. Sharon also demands that Abbas disarm militant groups.
The U.S. hopes the pullout will jump-start the peace process but Palestinians are skeptical, citing fears Israel will use the plan as an excuse to hold onto large chunks of the West Bank.
With color coded maps showing existing Jewish settlements, and Israeli plans for future expansion, Abbas hopes to convince Bush that his fears are not baseless.
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Eds: AP reporters Anne Gearan, Jennifer Loven and Barry Schweid contributed to this report.
AP-ES-05-25-05 1335EDT
I don't think they deserve any aid, but if there is going to be ANY aid to the PA, tie it to the lack of terrorist attacks. Spread the payments out. One terrorist attack against Isreal, and the payments are over. Permanantly. Period!
Which part of the Constitution authorizes tax dollars to be used for foreign aid?
I got an idea, how about giving the PLO terrist money to Social Security? Certainly a better use of the money that inciting anti-American hatred.
The answer is because these same arabs have been exploiting the palestinians for so long by pretending to support their cause. In actuallity, arabs detest the palestinians, that's why they want them out of their territories. The palestinians have been used as a pawn by the arabs to fight Israel, to have it destroyed.
Why not just give the money directly to Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and Al Quaeda??
We could even go one step further and give them site maps for all our power generating and water processing plants.
Or, how about saving them the trouble and digging the trenches for them to shoot us into when the US Gov finally capitulates to the new Caliphate?
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'Feeding a rabid dog will not prevent him from biting you'
If that isn't an old Chinese proverb, it SHOULD be!!
FRmail me to be added or removed from this Judaic/pro-Israel ping list.
WARNING: This is a high volume ping list
(Sorry about the duplicate thread)
Last update - 19:38 25/05/2005
Hezbollah: All of northern Israel in our rocket range
By News Agencies and Haaretz Service
Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah Wednesday acknowledged for first time that his Lebanese guerrilla group has more than 12,000 rockets and that all of northern Israel is within reach.
"All of the north of occupied Palestine, its settlements, airports, seaports, fields, factories and farms is under the feet and hands of the Islamic resistance," Nasrallah said.
Nasrallah also said that Hezbollah, under mounting international pressure to disarm, would fight anyone who tried to take away its weapons.
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"Any hand that reaches out to our weapons is an Israeli hand that will be cut off," Nasrallah told supporters on the fifth anniversary of Israel's witdhrawal from southern Lebanon.
"If anyone, anyone, thinks of disarming the resistance we will fight them like the martyrs of Kerbala," he said, referring to a battle in Islamic history central to Shi'ites.
The largely Shi'ite Muslim residents of the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, celebrated Nasrallah's words with fireworks and cheering, witnesses said.
Nasrallah told thousands of supporters in the town of Bint Jbeil, part of a southern strip Israel occupied for 22 years, that Hezbollah has over 12,000 rockets capable of hitting the whole of northern Israel.
But he added that Hizbollah, backed by Syria and Iran, would only use its weapons in defense of Lebanon.
"We do not want to drag the region into a war...We want to protect our country..." he said. "Any thought of disarming the resistance is madness."
A United Nations Security Council resolution adopted in September demanded that Syrian forces pull out and all militias in Lebanon disarm. Damascus withdrew its forces in April.
Utterly amazing. Maybe Israel should also relax border security, as a show of good faith of course.
As we help G-d's enemy , how will He punish America?
The Palistinian people can go to HELL.
They've proven they are not an apatheic majority being 'led' by extreme elements... the people themselves are extreme and barbaric (electing Hamas to majority gov't for example)
They get ZERO sympathy from me.
He will make America subject to invasion, that will be our punishment:
"They provoked the LORD to anger because they forsook him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. In his anger against Israel the LORD handed them over to raiders who plundered them. He sold them to their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the LORD was against them to defeat them, just as he had sworn to them. They were in great distress (Judg.2:12-15)."
The Chinese.
The only electricity that old terrorist Abu Mazen deserves is after he gets strapped into Ol' Sparky.
'Warmth' for a terrorist. Isn't that special.
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