U.S. taxpayer money to support terror?
(Abridged Version)

“One of the amazing things about the Middle East is how ideas about the region persist despite being repeatedly proven wrong.”
–Barry Rubin in the Jerusalem Post

The United States sends quite a bit of money around the world, and while the intent is always to do good, it doesn’t always work out that way. For example, during the past dozen years or so, tens of billions of dollars were channeled into the Palestinian Authority to foster what our optimists in the State Department said was a process for peace. That most of that money was diverted to uses having nothing to do with anything peaceful doesn’t seem to matter to those who want reopen this pipeline of money to this woeful area of the world again.

Under the umbrella of Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, an organization that sees little evil in the Arab world, 387 rabbis sent a letter to President Bush insisting that the United States continue sending “aid” to Hamas, the new power in the Palestinian Authority (PA). Hamas succeeded Yasser Arafat’s Fatah Party, the previous recipient of this misdirected largesse. (See story, page 6)
These rabbis must be aware that most of the money that was sent there before was either stolen or used to finance the terror that Israel lived with for the last 13 years. It was also dedicated to further entrench a corrupt terrorist regime that trampled over their long-suffering Arab constituents during that same period.

From the signing of the Oslo Agreement forward, almost 30,000 attacks on Israelis killed close to 2,000 and wounded many more. As author David Meir-Levi said in a recent article in Front Page Magazine, “The Palestinians receive(d) per capita more aid than (almost) any country on earth …. But they have nothing to show for it except grinding poverty, obscenely wealthy political elite, and a dozen terrorist armies.”
If there were a real sign of change in what was going on over there, and if it gave us some hint of a chance for peace, then the insistence of these rabbis to continue this flow of funds could possibly be justified. But asking that this aid be continued on the basis of Brit Tzedek’s reliance on a poll by a Palestinian polling organization is a reach. This poll found what every other survey on the same subject has failed to detect: that the majority of Arabs want peace with Israel. Excuse us for being skeptical.

The fact is that there is no hard evidence that most Arabs in and around Israel have changed their minds and now want a permanent peace with Israel. There is even less of an indication that a majority of them are willing to recognize Israel’s right to exist. Projecting one’s own wishes on others doesn’t make them real. An election that replaces one terrorist anti-Israel regime with another that is even more strident and willful in pursuit of Israel’s extermination is not a sign of peace.
No doubt the rabbis who signed this letter did it with the best of motives, but the road paved with those intentions didn’t lead to a good place in the past, and there is no indication that this path will lead to a constructive outcome this time either.
The bill before Congress now, authored by Reps. Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and Lantos of California (HR4681), would deny U.S. funds to the PA unless Hamas relents on its commitment to the destruction of Israel and the extermination of the Jewish people. Is that too much to ask? Should aid be given in its absence? We think not.
Nonetheless, the signing rabbis believe that they have the diplomatic equation right and think that they can buy peace by having the US send taxpayer money to Hamas. The experience of the last 13 years might not matter to them, but the Israeli people and their long suffering Arab neighbors need to be spared their good intentions.
–nrg

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Jimmy’s Israel problem

Jimmy Carter has an Israel problem. The more he talks about Israel, the more his statements define him. His rhetoric increasingly attacks Israel, placing him firmly on the side of those who would like to see Israel disappear. Jimmy Carter’s most recent outburst was in a column he wrote for the Pakistan Daily Times entitled, “Colonisation (sic) of Palestine precludes peace.” In it, Carter writes, “The pre-eminent obstacle to peace is Israel’s colonisation of Palestine…”
Of course, near the end of the article, Carter uses the obligatory words urging recognition of Israel by the Palestinians once they are established as a state, but as soon as he uses the word “colonisation,” he joins the rabid regimes of Iran, Syria and organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah in denying Israel’s existence and her legitimacy as a state. It’s a code that is easily recognizable in that part of the world as it is in the extreme left fever pens of Europe and the West.Usually, the statements of a washed-up, over-the-hill politician don’t matter that much, but when they come from an ex-President, they have a credence and get a life in most of the rest of the world.
That makes Jimmy Carter’s Israel problem ours.
–nrg

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