Posted on 05/09/2006 3:39:58 PM PDT by SmithL
The United States bowed to pressure from its allies on Tuesday and agreed to support a new program to temporarily funnel additional humanitarian aid directly to the Palestinian people.
A statement by Mideast peacemakers, issued after a day of closed-door diplomatic meetings, did not suggest precisely how much or what kind of aid they would provide. But the agreement seemed to underscore a concern that months of withholding most aid from the Palestinians, part of an effort to pressure the new Hamas-led government toward a more accommodating stance with Israel, was harming the Palestinian people.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the European Union would take the lead in the new effort. The United Nations and Russia, the other partners in the Quartet peacemaking group along with the U.S., also endorsed the program.
"The thrust of this is the international community is still trying to respond to the needs of the Palestinian people," Rice said.
The U.S. and European Union have cut off much of the aid that had flowed in the past to Palestinian programs, working to prevent any of it from helping Hamas, the militant Islamic group that has conducted numerous terrorist attacks.
The cutoff has left the Palestinian government virtually broke and increasingly unable to provide basic services. Some 165,000 government workers, whose incomes had supported one-third of Palestinian families, have not been paid for the past two months.
Going into Tuesday's meetings at the United Nations, Rice said she was urging the allies to retain a hard-line approach toward aid that could end up benefiting Hamas.
After a second session, the diplomats produced a statement expressing their willingness "to endorse a temporary international mechanism that is limited in scope and duration, operates with full transparency and accountability, and ensures direct delivery of any assistance
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Boxes of food and medical supplies only. No cash. I hope.
"Look Dr. Rice, they freely elected the terrorists to run their little neck of the world. We don't need to be funding them to look good etc. in front of the rest of the world. They hate US anyway, they hate anything western etc. Let them live by their own dang choices. There is a whole middle-east there to support them...let Hamas do the dirty deals elsewhere."
Exactly. Such as gesture might influence a teeny minority of moderate muslims who only show partial disdain for Western culture. To the extremists, they say thanks for the cash so we can blow you up real good some more.
Help people OK, but only if it yeilds positive results. These people are so deep into the negative they should start paying us an asshole tax.
What this tells us is that the Palestinians can vote in whoever they want and they will not be penalized for it.
This is certain to reduce terrorism. /s
"Can somebody tell me what these 165,000 public employees are being paid to do?"
Sure! They are on the debating committee on what level of hatred they have for Israel for trying to supply them jobs and promote peace.
Add in that the Republican position on illegal immigration to it, and I'll second your motion.
Illegal immigration is called 'illegal immigration' for a reason! And the last time I checked, we aren't supposed to go about rewarding criminals.
Palesimian governmental workers... make bombs and kill Jews.
It's in their union contract.
Gosh. I didn't vote for the "Global Test" guy and yet I still got the Global Test result.
That's what I get for voting for Bandar Bush.
I'm not sure that I want to be on the receiving end of THAT tax.
Well, so much for that strategery (shaking my head in disbelief that collectively we Americans have become such gutless wimps).
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! President Bush's approval ratings just dropped another ten points in my book.
The largest large part of this "government employees" em though they won't tell you this is security forces or police made up of Fatah,Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades etc. etc.
They haven't been payed in two months hence we have all these kidnappings and shootings between Fatah and Hamas.
Fatah has upset that Hamas has gained power and their policies have gotten their gravy train from the U.S. and Europe cut off.
So they have getting into shooting battles with Hamas and Hamas shoots back and it is getting close to a full scale war.
What they got paid for before was to shoot and kill Jews. Now they are not getting paid and the Israelis have left Gaza so they are shooting each other.
The Arab States don't like that, so they [especially the Saudis] have pressured the U.S. and their singing group The Two-faced Plus Two Quartet to pay them to quit blaming and killing each other and go back to their first love, killing Jews.
That reminds me of a joke I heard a while back..
..You see, Uncle Sam, The leader of Canada, and Osama Bin Laden were walking along the beach one day (ok, that part is a bit wierd now that I think about it) and come across a genie's lamp. They rub it.. and out pops the genie. The Genie grants each one wish.. The canadian goes first, a farmer by trade. He thinks for a few moments and says "I am a farmer, I want all of Canada to have lush soil, and bountiful harvests from now on". The wish was granted, and Osama goes next. He thinks for a moment, and says "I want a massive wall around all of the Middle East, to keep out the infidel". It was granted, and on to Uncle Sam.
Uncle Sam, a former civil engineer thinks for a moment, and asks, "How big is this wall?" The genie smiles, and says "The biggest human kind has seen, A mile up, and a mile thick. Nothing can get in or out." Uncle Sam thinks for a moment once more, and says.. "Fill it with water."
Haha. I think I might have screwed it up a bit, but you get the idea.
LOL, I like that one.
Tancredo Rips Government's Spying Of Minutemen
Falling Down?
It's very difficult to understand how we're going to win this war.
Where was the barf alert!
Stupid is as stupid does.
Notice none of the Arab states are kicking in any money? Man, they laugh and laugh and laugh at us over there.
Exactly. We were told by the MSM that the Palestinians voted in Hamas because they were tired of Fatah's corruption and lack of progress.
But apparantly they didn't stop to think that, after 15 years of giving them guns and money, that Fatah would shoot back if Hamas tried to take the corruption away from them.
So now we have a Hamas who has to take by force the graft that Fatah will fight to keep. Nevermind that there was no progress because Fatah didn't do its job of stopping violence and preventing Hamas from getting weapons. Nevermind that Fatah didn't do any social outreach which made Hamas popular. They didn't pave roads, make manageable courts, build hospitals or anything like that. They just took the graft, paid off their soldiers and the local gangs, and let Hamas do whatever it wanted - including make violence that prevented any progress.
Now Hamas wants to take their graft, so Fatah will have to fight to keep it. And so now we are going to help Fatah steal our money by giving them money to stop Hamas from taking the money they steal from us.
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