When one sees that there are 50% more people living under the poverty line in Israel than in the West Bank, it shows how badly the press is reporting. Of course, being positive toward the Jewish state is not "politically correct" and would have the author thrown out of the press club. Don't you think that it is time that the press be held responsible for misreporting the issues?
Peace can never be achieved if information provided to the negotiators is inaccurate or misleading. Isn't it time that the press become an honest broker? What do you think?
http://israel-commentary.org/?p=958
By Peggy Shapiro
AMERICAN THINKER
July 11, 2011
Dan Greenfield recently that the Palestinian Authority is facing another budget crisis and requesting additional funding from the West. Before we take out our overdrawn checkbooks, it might be time to look at some of the numbers and decide if we can afford to pour more money down the Palestinian Authority drain. Greenfield makes the point that the Palestinians are better off than some of the people who are footing most of the PA bills.
Percentage of the population who live below the poverty line:
West Bank (under PA control) 16%
Washington, D.C. 18.9%.
Greece 20%.
Israel 24%.
Palestinians are already receiving more money in international financial assistance than other groups who are struggling in far more dire circumstance.
Per capita Foreign Assistance 2009:
Palestinian Authority $725.00
Afghanistan $219.00
Sudan $56.00
Central African Republic $53.00
Ethiopia $48.00
Democratic Republic Congo $34.60
Niger $31.20 Bangladesh $8.00
In fact, the Palestinians are the top per-capita aid recipients in the history of the planet. It’s not just how much, but how long Palestinians have received international welfare that breaks all records. For 63 years, the US, European nations and the UN have been nonstop donors. While all refugees in the world receive assistance for a few years from the United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, Palestinians have their own, seemingly eternal source of UN welfare under the auspices of the United Nations Relief United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Set up in 1949 with a temporary, three-year mandate (UNGA Resolution 302IV) to provide aid and jobs for 700,000 Palestinian refugees, UNRWA has grown into a permanent institution for the only people allowed to hold refugee status for over sixty years. The number of “refugees” has inflated to 4,618,141 since refugee status is an inheritance which is passed on to all descendants and their descendants no matter where they live. The Return on the investment to the Palestinian Authority is questionable at best. It certainly hasn’t bought the peace it was expected to buy.
In 2007, eighty-seven countries and international organizations pledged $7.4 billion to the Palestinian Authority, an amount far in excess of any previous level of US or European aid to the Palestinians for the purpose of strengthening those Palestinians who favor peaceful coexistence with Israel.
How much peace has $7.4 billion purchased? Not only has the Palestinian Authority formed a unity government with the terror group Hamas, it also passed a law in June which allows it to put imprisoned terrorists, even members of Hamas, on its payroll.
Rather than quell violence, foreign assistance to the Palestinian Authority has shown to correlate to an increase in violent attacks against both other Palestinians and Israelis. The billions of dollars, francs, marks, shekels and euros in Palestinian aid are not producing the desired outcomes and have had some dire consequences for the Palestinian people, who live with the resulting government corruption and culture of resentment and dependency. The welfare does not bring peace or prosperity to its recipients and we cannot afford to throw any more money down the Palestinian drain.
By Peggy Shapiro
AMERICAN THINKER
July 11, 2011
Dan Greenfield recently that the Palestinian Authority is facing another budget crisis and requesting additional funding from the West. Before we take out our overdrawn checkbooks, it might be time to look at some of the numbers and decide if we can afford to pour more money down the Palestinian Authority drain. Greenfield makes the point that the Palestinians are better off than some of the people who are footing most of the PA bills.
Percentage of the population who live below the poverty line:
West Bank (under PA control) 16%
Washington, D.C. 18.9%.
Greece 20%.
Israel 24%.
Palestinians are already receiving more money in international financial assistance than other groups who are struggling in far more dire circumstance.
Per capita Foreign Assistance 2009:
Palestinian Authority $725.00
Afghanistan $219.00
Sudan $56.00
Central African Republic $53.00
Ethiopia $48.00
Democratic Republic Congo $34.60
Niger $31.20 Bangladesh $8.00
In fact, the Palestinians are the top per-capita aid recipients in the history of the planet. It’s not just how much, but how long Palestinians have received international welfare that breaks all records. For 63 years, the US, European nations and the UN have been nonstop donors. While all refugees in the world receive assistance for a few years from the United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, Palestinians have their own, seemingly eternal source of UN welfare under the auspices of the United Nations Relief United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Set up in 1949 with a temporary, three-year mandate (UNGA Resolution 302IV) to provide aid and jobs for 700,000 Palestinian refugees, UNRWA has grown into a permanent institution for the only people allowed to hold refugee status for over sixty years. The number of “refugees” has inflated to 4,618,141 since refugee status is an inheritance which is passed on to all descendants and their descendants no matter where they live. The Return on the investment to the Palestinian Authority is questionable at best. It certainly hasn’t bought the peace it was expected to buy.
In 2007, eighty-seven countries and international organizations pledged $7.4 billion to the Palestinian Authority, an amount far in excess of any previous level of US or European aid to the Palestinians for the purpose of strengthening those Palestinians who favor peaceful coexistence with Israel.
How much peace has $7.4 billion purchased? Not only has the Palestinian Authority formed a unity government with the terror group Hamas, it also passed a law in June which allows it to put imprisoned terrorists, even members of Hamas, on its payroll.
Rather than quell violence, foreign assistance to the Palestinian Authority has shown to correlate to an increase in violent attacks against both other Palestinians and Israelis. The billions of dollars, francs, marks, shekels and euros in Palestinian aid are not producing the desired outcomes and have had some dire consequences for the Palestinian people, who live with the resulting government corruption and culture of resentment and dependency. The welfare does not bring peace or prosperity to its recipients and we cannot afford to throw any more money down the Palestinian drain.
You wrote, "When one sees that there are 50% more people living under the poverty line in Israel than in the West Bank, it shows how badly the press is reporting."
ReplyDeleteThis is not accurate. The article you cite references poverty only in the area of West Bank under PA control. Poverty in the areas controlled by Israel (Area C), which is 60% of the West Bank, is much higher. This is the area where hundreds of Palestinian homes have been demolished by Israel.
However, on the more general point, we have enough people suffering right here in the U.S., that I think it is time to cut back substantially on foreign aid everywhere. You can call me "isolationist."
--David
From frontpagemag.com on July 8, 2011, David Greenfield writes:
ReplyDelete"But do “Palestinian People” really need billions more in aid? The World Bank report for 2011 found that only 16 percent of the West Bank under PA control was living below the poverty line.
How serious is a 16 percent poverty rate? It’s better than the poverty rate in Washington D.C. which hit 18.9 percent. That means that politicians in Washington D.C. are diverting money that could have been used to help needy Americans a few miles from their offices, to help the comparatively better off terrorist populations in the West Bank.
Contrary to the barrage of news stories on the suffering of the Palestinians, the poverty rate for America and the West Bank aren’t that far apart. The California poverty rate is at 15.3 percent. And the national average at 14.3 percent is hardly that much better."
This agrees with David's point of why are we supporting the PA when we have as much poverty. I would not want to stop foreign aid to Israel as there are a number of other countries that I could mention that get aid and do not support our activities around the world as all!
I think that "isolationist" is not the right description, it might be realist. There are times when in the name of national survival, certain actions have to be taken. At this time, we need to save as much money as possible otherwise the country that we love, will be lost. Foreign aid that does to Syria, kosovo,
Liberia, Libya etc should be cancelled immediately.