MILKing and disHONEstY
Elder of Ziyon has had a couple of important posts that go together quite well and make an important point.
Lately there has been quite a bit of wailing on the part of the peace processors about how terrible it is that the Hamas run PA is out of money. What a humanitarian crisis will ensue. First we must understand exactly what the PA “owes” its “workers.”
This article says that the PA pays $118M every month just for salaries. Since the PA employs some 140,000 people, that means that each “worker” gets over $10,000 a year on the average. This may not be high by Western standards, but compare this to Egypt, whose average annual income is $1530 (in 2001) and Jordan’s is $1750. (I am assuming that “average annual income” is per worker; I couldn’t find a definition.)
So perhaps one of the problems is that the PA is using its foreign aid money to overpay its bribes to terrorists. But if milking foreign aid to provide comfort for terrorists isn’t enough, let’s understand the dishonesty in claiming that the PA needs these funds. Elder of Ziyon reported a couple of days earlier that
Formerly about 450 dunams in Gush Katif were covered with greenhouses that grew vegetables for HaSalad. In a mere six months the firm has again reached 100% of its former production. Dozens of new workers from Sderot and Netivot have replaced many of the workers formerly employed in Gush Katif.
So remember every plea for more aid dollars to the PA is an admission that the PA in its 12+ years of existence has failed to build an infrastructure for its citizenry and more generally has failed to build a civil society to live peaceably with Israel.
It has been able to nurture grievance and violence due to the generosity of well meaning (and probably no shortage of not well meaning) sponsors of Palestinian independence without consequence.
If Palestinian nationalism was about creating a state there would be one by now. I’ve argued that the fact that 2000 was not the year of the big peace breakout shows that the basic assumptions of land for peace were wrong. (Israel offered both the PA and Syria over 90% of the land they were demanding and withdrew from Lebanon. None of those entitites made peace.)
Palestinian nationalism isn’t about building a state but destroying one. When Fatah couldn’t do it fast enough, Hamas was voted in. Giving money to the PA now is money to destroy Israel. There can be no more illusions.
Technorati tags: Israel, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian aid, Alei Katif.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.
