Few in Washington may realize that the issue of U.S. funding for Palestine is the talk of the town in Ramallah and other Palestinian cities. And the talk is not pleasant.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been telling aides that he plans to reject some $150 million in federal money earmarked for Palestinian security.
Abbas's opposition is principled. The funds are part of an $800 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development that
Congress appropriated in June 2009. Shortly before the funds were disbursed this summer, however, the larger grant was held up by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. A Republican from Florida, Ros-Lehtinen, now chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, placed an
informational hold on this budgetary line item in August. It is her prerogative to do so as a member of Congress. But rather than delay the funds to investigate a concern, the hold was meant as punishment -- a warning to the Palestinian Authority not to seek recognition as an
independent state at the United Nations General Assembly meeting the following month.
Abbas, of course, made the Palestinians' application for statehood in September. And Palestinians note that when President Obama addressed the U.N. General Assembly in September 2010, he said he hoped that "when we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations -- an independent, sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel." To Palestinians, their efforts for recognition fall within the Wilsonian doctrine of self-determination. But others don't see it that way.
Ros-Lehtinen's hold put a freeze on many education, health and democratic governance projects aimed at defusing tensions in the Middle East and building transparent Palestinian public institutions. In addition to funds for security services that were to be spent directly by the Palestinian Authority, which Abbas controls, the USAID grant included money for the U.S. consulate to use to support democratic initiatives. Intermediary organizations that were to oversee this spending included such U.S. groups as Sesame Workshop, World Vision, Internews, Save the Children and Amideast. Friends of the Earth, an Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian organization, also was to participate.
After U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak intervened last month, $200 million for the Palestinian Authority was unfrozen. Fifty million of those funds was to go toward ongoing projects, and $150 million was pegged for Palestinian security services. All other funding remains on hold, including $4.6 million that was intended for use by the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem under the Middle East Partnership Initiative. Established during the George W. Bush administration, MEPI was initially administered by Liz Cheney with the goal of empowering democratic initiatives in the Middle East. As the Arab Spring continues to drive change throughout the region, Palestinian leaders are feeling its effect. The millions earmarked for Palestinian security have become a hot potato.
Criticism of the Abbas administration has appeared in social media platforms and newspaper editorials. Palestinian Authority leaders have been accused of being security agents for Israel. Palestinian-Israeli security cooperation has become taboo in Ramallah. Meanwhile, even though Palestinians have provided unprecedented cooperation on security, Israeli provocations continue. The Israelis have not stopped building settlements or expropriating Palestinian lands.
It would be a political misstep to accept funds earmarked for security services while schools and nurseries are not completed. Palestinians would see the aid as analogous to the 30 pieces of silver that were accepted by Judas Iscariot when he delivered Jesus -- a position Abbas does not want to be in.
Beyond the trouble caused by this hold, Congress is doing little to move other budget issues forward. Not only have U.S. lawmakers been holding up approved and obligated funds for Palestinians, but the 2012 budget also has not yet been discussed. Congress is making it difficult for the White House, the State Department and the Defense Department to conduct foreign policy.
The intricacies of foreign policy are usually unknown to the average American. But it doesn't take much to understand that aligning with one side in the Middle East peace process not only erodes the United States' diplomatic leverage but also plants the seeds of doom for the United States in a sensitive region.
This article first appeared in the Washington Post.
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International aid to Palestinians - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
USAID Middle East - Countries - West Bank/Gaza
United States Aid to the Palestinians - U.S. Department of State
Obama administration: U.S. aid to Palestinian Authority critical to ...
Why stop at rejecting $150 million, reject it all. Man up!! Stand up to the Zionist controlled imperialist, oppressors and tell them to keep their money. I'm sure that the Arab/Persian world will replace it, no strings attached.
America has every right to demand anything of israel because israel gets military aid from them
But america has to give the palestinians aid unconditionally, and can not even suggest that the palestinians shouldn't break their treaty obligations.
Israel does none of these things and shows no interest in doing them. Perhaps it can't. It is so estranged from everyone else in the Middle East that no neighboring country will accept flight plans that originate in or transit it. Israel is therefore useless in terms of support for American power projection. It has no allies other than us. It has developed no friends. Israeli participation in our military operations would preclude the cooperation of many others. Meanwhile, Israel has become accustomed to living on the American military dole. The notion that Israeli taxpayers might help defray the expense of U.S. military or foreign assistance operations, even those undertaken at Israel's behest, would be greeted with astonishment in Israel and incredulity on Capitol Hill.
These military and economic benefits are not the end of the story. The American government also works hard to shield Israel from the international political and legal consequences of its policies and actions in the occupied territories, against its neighbors, or - most recently - on the high seas. The nearly 40 vetoes the United States has cast to protect Israel in the UN Security Council are the tip of iceberg. We have blocked a vastly larger number of potentially damaging reactions to Israeli behavior by the international community. The political costs to the United States internationally of having to spend our political capital in this way are huge
Recently Iraq told the US to pack up and get the hell out, because their future plan is alliance with Iran and.....Syria no less. A month ago the Iraqi government awarded new oil contracts, no American company received a contract. All the contracts went to China and Russia. 4500 dead Americans 1 Trillion in investment and that's the thank you you get. Shall we talk about Afghanistan and Pakistan?? I think you get the gist.
There is a saying "Tel me who your friends are, I'll tell you who you are" If these are the friends you are yearning for, than you are beyond redemption, dude.
Where Israel has no diplomatic relations, U.S. diplomats routinely make its case for it. As I know from personal experience (having been thanked by the then Government of Israel for my successful efforts on Israel's behalf in Africa), the U.S. government has been a consistent promoter and often the funder of various forms of Israeli programs of cooperation with other countries. It matters also that America - along with a very few other countries - has remained morally committed to the Jewish experiment with a state in the Middle East. Many more Jews live in America than in Israel. Resolute American support should be an important offset to the disquiet about current trends that has led over 20 percent of Israelis to emigrate, many of them to the United States, where Jews enjoy unprecedented security and prosperity
You can't bomb someone into being your friend.
Identifiable U.S. government subsidies to Israel total over $140 billion since 1949. This makes Israel by far the largest recipient of American giveaways since World War II. The total would be much higher if aid to Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and support for Palestinians in refugee camps and the occupied territories were included. These programs have complex purposes but are justified in large measure in terms of their contribution to the security of the Jewish state.
I think you know that too.
According to the Muslims Muhammad flew up to heaven with his horse from the temple mount in Jerusalem, and that's gave them the right to build the dome of the rock right on top of our temple. So, now we own Jerusalem. According to your logic we have the right to take this masque apart and ship it to Mecca.
Your whole argument in this post is ludicrous. This whole conflict is about religion, whether you like it or not. Why is the US and the rest of the world refuse to recognize even west Jerusalem as the Jewish capital?? beside , if you insist on making it a non religious conflict it must be applied to the 3 religions claiming ownership to Jerusalem. Mocking the Jews claim only makes you and your opinion not relevance.
This is the scenario - make life so miserable for anyone that harbors, allows, or otherwise does not stop Hamas and every other Palestinian that thinks killing and violence are the only way to get what you want. Enough is enough.
Or...now is the time to sit down and negotiate the deal that you want. Israel has said they are ready to make peace...the world is watching.
Abbas needs to:
- set a time and a place
- agree to the right for the Jewish State of Israel to exist within mutually agreed upon borders.
- then he needs to sit back and wait
If Israel does not show up for the meeting Abbas wins - he has shown Israel is not sincere in their desire for peace. If Netanyahu shows up - he wins because he will get a land of Palestine for his people.
Where is the downside to Abbas and the Palestinian Authority?
All from the governing body that created the State of Israel
You are talking about the Palestinians.
Who will run their new state, Hamas or Fatah? Neither is likely to give up its power in favor of the other. It's more likely to lead to a power struggle like when Hamas took over Gaza. Do you think this problem will magically resolve itself some how? It will more likely lead to a civil war.
How about all the rock.et at.tacks against Israel? If Hamas ends up in control of a new Palestinian state, do you think they will stop these at.tacks? Quite often it's Hamas themselves firing the rock.ets? They won't stop them, Israel will retaliate, and the whole things starts all over again.
Where will the state be? Do the Palestinians just draw a map declaring this is our land,
and Israel will agree? Not likely.
Many things have to happen before the Palestinians get a state. Negotiations with Israel are only part of what needs to be worked out first.
On March 22, 1979, the Security Council adopted Resolution No. 446. Israel’s violation of Resolution 446 (sections quoted below) represents the most flagrant violation of Israel, not only of the UN but also the stated policy of our government under successive administrations:
(The Council) Determines that the policy and practices of Israel in establishing settlements in the Palestinian and Arab territories occupied since 1967 have no legal validity and constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive and lasting peace in the Middle East; Calls once more upon Israel, as the occupying power, to abide scrupulously by the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, to rescind it’s previous measures and to desist from taking any action which would result in changing the legal status and geographical nature and materially affecting the demographic composition of the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, and in particular, not to transfer parts of its own civilian population into the occupied Arab territories.
Specifically, the San Remo Conference, 1920, designated "Palestine" - the name of a territory, not a state/nationality - that presently consists of Jordan, Israel, WestBank and Gaza to be the "national home for the Jewish people".
The British, 1921, contrary to the spirit of San Remo, handed over 77% of "Palestine" to the Arabs, consisting of today's Muslim-Arab country of Jordan.
The rest, 23% of "Palestine", or present day Israel-WestBank-Gaza, remained to be the "national home for the Jewish people" in which Jews may settle without any limitation. This was accepted by the League of Nations, 1922.
The League of Nations decisions were then adopted by the United Nations, 1945, and in its Charter, Article 80, specifically prohibited anyone to change League of Nations decisions without the consent of the people for whom the area is "the national home for the Jewish people", i.e. the Jewish people.
The San Remo conference authorised the administration of Palestine as it evolved into self governance. It did not define a Jewish state, nor did it say where a home for the Jewish people might have any boundaries, if any boundaries at all. It did not prescribe an unlimited migration of Jewish people into Palestine.
All of the League of Nations decisions regarding the mandate left the administration of that mandate to the mandatory power, with the proviso that the League might intervene if that power was enacting matters which were in conflict with its objectives. The mandatory power concluded (1922) that a "home" was not a "state" and that the Jewish people might find a "home" within Palestine and share governance on a proportional basis. The League did not intervene and, therefore, confirmed the mandatory power's conclusions.
If the UN Charter, Article 80, means anything, it is that the mandatory power's decisions, unchallenged by the League, should have been "prohibited to change."
The Jewish population of Palestine at the time of the partition plan was less than 30% of the whole. There was no attempt to find a consensus that agreed with the UN's decision to produce a partition plan. That plan was clearly objected to by the majority of the population. Your assertion about "the consent of the people" is another nonsense.
See: http://tiny.cc/gjavz
Of course 'peace' is not in Israel's economic best interests, not when Israel can sell it's goods to a captive market like the Palestinians, not when Israel can steal prime Palestinian agricultural land and hand it over to the illegal Israeli settlers, not when Israel can steal Palestinian resources (eg: $900 million per year through control of WB mining and quarrying), etc.
With such illegal economic interests is it any wonder that Israel has no interest in make peace?
Area C of the West Bank, which Israel controls, is considered the breadbasket of the Palestinian territories was never given over to the Palestinians as per the Oslo Accords.
All Palestinian imports and exports are controlled by the Israelis, Gaza is a good example of how Israel can destroy the Palestinian economy at will.
Israel controls all tax revenue belonging to the Palestinians, this is the same tax revenue which Israel is now 'withholding' (contrary to the Oslo Accords) in order to punish the Palestinians.
Israel has wantonly destroyed Palestinian farmland, infrastructure (ie: water irrigation systems), countless olive trees, etc.
The 'Separation Barrier' has robbed Palestinians of their land, land which is now given over to the illegal Israeli settlers.
Foreign investors are by and large unwilling to invest in Palestine as they know Israel can destroy their investments at a moments notice.
In short the Palestinian economy will always be a truly 'captive market' while under Israeli occupation and control.
I never mentioned the word 'fault' I was talking solely about 'control' and the Israel 'controls' the Palestinian People as well as their economy.
Don't like this fact? Then call for the end of the Israel military occupation of Palestine.
I guess they should make peace then.
Afghanistan was because of 9/11 and OBL and Al-Qaeda having bases there. Iraq, nothing to do with Israel. In fact Iraq kept Iran on a leash, and Iran is a much bigger threat to Israel than Iraq ever was.
Maybe you mean Iran. Iran has been at odds with the US since the hostage crisis in 1979. They also have yearly "de.ath to America rallies", which has nothing to do with Israel either. The truth of the matter is that the Saudis, and other Mus.lim counties in the region, are just as worried about the Iranians gaining nukes as Israel is.
So which wars?