Funding the Palestinians

Following the signing of the Oslo accords in September 1993, the U.S. government provided $375 million between 1993 and 1998 through USAID to implement a program of development in the West Bank and Gaza.

In 1999, the regular USAID operating year budget was maintained at $75 million and in 2000 its level increased to $85 million. In 2000, the U.S. Congress appropriated an additional $400 million to USAID West Bank and Gaza to facilitate the implementation of the Wye River Accords.

In 2001, USAID West Bank/Gaza’s operating year budget remained at approximately $85 million. USAID funding for the West Bank and Gaza between 1993 and 2001 totals approximately $1 billion. Of this amount, $540 million had been obligated through September 2000 and approximately $460 million will be obligated by September 30, 2002.

Using the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation’s (MOPIC) comparative data, the U.S. is, by far, the highest disbursing bilateral donor in the West Bank and Gaza.

From other sources, I have seen the figure of $114 million in actual payments in the past year by US AID in the territories.

I am interested in collecting information on the various sources of funding for the PA and the Palestinian cause. I thought I would kick it off with this website, as it represents our direct bilateral contribution (or some of it). But there are many other funding agencies involved in funneling money to the Palestinians, making it rather difficult to put together a complete picture.

Here are some other players and figures I have seen. Corrections, elaborations, and above all additions to the list would be most welcome, if you know of any or can track any new ones down.

1. The UN channels funds through an organization called UNRWA, to the tune of around $400 million annually. As near as I can tell, we provide about 1/4 of that, and the EU provides nearly half. This dates from 1994, when third parties pledged around $2.4 billion to the new PA in return for the Oslo agreements. Powell recently pledged an additional $35 million to this channel.
2. The UN also has a seperate older organization called the UNDP-PAPP which has been funding the Palestinians since the late 1970s. I have seen the following figures - $400 million to date, $145 million in ongoing projects.
3. The Saudi government agreed to provide around $500 million over five years in the late 1990s. Recently, TV fundraisers in Saudi Arabia raised $100 million, and similar efforts in the other gulf states raised another $100 million (50 UAE, 35 Dubai, 10 Bahrain, 8 Qatar).
4. The EU provides around $75 million per year in direct aid to the PA government, in addition to contributions to the UNRWA.
5. Our $115 million USAID budget is covered in the article itself.
6. The World Bank seems to be paying out $30-35 million a year for various projects in the territories.
7. Palestinian controlled banks seem to be expanding credit to the tune of about $450 million annually, beyond the level of deposits. There are allegations of Shekel and dollar counterfeiting as well, but I haven't seen anything to indicate their possible scale.
8. The territories run a $1.8 billion trade deficit, with that much more in goods and services coming into the territories than going out of them. Exports are on the order of $700 million while imports run $2.5 billion (in a roughly $6 billion total economy). The government budget is $1.73 billion. These items are from the CIA world factbook.
9. There are unknown amounts sent to Hamas and Hezbollah by other middle east governments, including Iraq and Iran.
10. Private contributions, and transfers from family working abroad, etc, from western states and from the gulf region are known to flow to various Palestinian individuals and groups, but I have not seen figures, if anybody knows.

Any further factual information on the subject would be most helpful.

Given what they are doing while getting it, and the fact that money is fungible, I quite agree. But I still would like to know the facts, and just how hydra-headed this thing is. It seems to me the world decided to pay the Palestinians to make peace with Israel back at the time of Oslo, and now that they have chosen to wage continued war instead, the world is if anything increasing the payments.

When some in the west are calling for a "Marshall plan" for the territories, it seems to be overlooked that we already tried that. There is also the fact that the continued funding during continued war seems to have transformed the funding exercise into a giant protection racket, with lots of racket and not much protection. After all, the world does not pay anybody else to not kill Israelis, only people who kill Israelis. So in a way they are payments for killing Israelis.

But I was trying to keep at least somewhat seperated my opinions about the funding, from the facts about it. It is not easy just to find out what is happening, what all the sources of funding are, and how many of them are indirectly coming out of our own pockets. Which has broader implications. It is not just a matter of the Palestinians, but of a set of world-wide institutions that take our money and funnel it to whoever is popular with foreign dictators, the left, etc. There is something called the power of the purse, and historically it has been central to liberty. The alienation of that power is dangerous.

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