Rewarding Palestinian Terrorism
Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen argue that a Palestinian security plan backed by Washington calls into question President Bush's commitment to secure Israel's safety.
Unwavering U.S. determination to fund, train, and arm more than 50,000 Palestinian “soldiers” raises serious doubts about the repeated promises President George W. Bush has made to secure Israel’s safety and bring peace to the Middle East.
If the Bush administration gets its way, $4.2 billion to $7 billion in American taxpayer dollars over the next five years may fund training and purchase arms for tens of thousands of seasoned Palestinian terrorists. Many are veteran murderers, released from Israeli prisons in “confidence building” measures repeatedly demanded by the U.S.
It’s as if the U.S. proposed sending money, arms, and military instructors to help Sudanese strongman, Omar Hasan Ahmad al-Bashir, assist Darfur refugees — against whom he openly pursues genocide.
Rewarding Palestinian terrorism began in earnest in September 1993 with the Oslo Accords. Closely examining funds and propaganda mechanisms that facilitated PLO persuasion of the West should have indicated how al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations operate financially and otherwise. Alas, the U.S. and the West paid no attention.
Instead, in 1994 the U.S. helped establish the Palestinian Authority (PA), headed by one of the most wanted criminals in the world — the Muslim Brotherhood member and Soviet-trained jihadist Yasser Arafat. His comrade in arms, vizier, and chief negotiator, Mahmoud Abbas, follows in Arafat’s footsteps — albeit without the trademark kafiyah and beard — even more successfully.
Ignoring $10 billion (PDF) in Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) loot that Arafat already controlled, plus more than $2 billion in illegal annual income, the West showered millions more on Arafat. The West assumed that giving the PA legitimacy, funding it, and persuading Israel to cede territory would convince Palestinians to stop targeting Israel and the West.
As the world recognized the PA, however, Palestinians abused their new status. They expanded their illegal activities and terrorism. The more violent the Palestinians became, the more money and concessions they exacted from the West.
In 2001, a year into the second intifada, official donations to the PA jumped over 80% from $555 million to $1.002 billion (PDF)– including at least $114 million from the U.S. Sure enough, that year hundreds of Israelis were murdered and thousands injured in at least 121 attacks.
The U.S. distributes funds to the Palestinians through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Until now, the U.S. funded only selected projects, which were expected to be vetted and certified by the USAID to ensure recipients used the funds only for their allocated purposes, and did not “commit, threaten or support terrorism.”
Yet, in dozens of cases the USAID mission for the West Bank and Gaza failed to enforce federal laws requiring they bar organizations and individuals that threaten, support, or are affiliated with terrorism. The USAID also failed to certify that recipients have not provided material support for terrorism.
In at least 74 cases, according to a December 2007 audit, the mission “failed to comply” (PDF) with the anti-terrorism requirements of Executive Order 13224. It failed to vet subcontractors and require anti-terrorism certification for all contractors and subcontractors who received money.
Yet, the USAID mission even now plans to forfeit requirements on cumulative payments of under $25,000 annually. It should be noted that $25,000 can buy 50 Katyusha rockets.
The USAID mission argued that the prohibition against cash assistance to the PA is “technically an anti-corruption measure and not an anti-terrorism measure.” Thus, they claim they violated no anti-terrorism clause.
Such clever manipulation of U.S. laws to prevent funding terrorist and corrupt regimes seems equivalent to the irrational Bush Administration rationale for giving $150 million in cash directly to the PA within a new $555 million aid package.
This would be the first time the U.S. gives the utterly corrupt PA cash to use as it likes, even to share with U.S.-designated terrorist organizations such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas.
Notwithstanding Fatah-Hamas leadership disagreements branding each other “murderers and thieves,” on Jan. 30 Abbas agreed to give Hamas $3.1 billion of $7.7 billion pledged by international donors in Paris last December.
Money is fungible. PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, a former World Bank official, made this clear in a 2007 interview with London’s Daily Telegraph. “No one can [assure] donors” that funds reach their designated destinations, Fayyad declared. He went on to state that controlling Palestinian finances is “virtually impossible.”
But on February 11 at the National Press Club in Washington D.C., a straight-faced Fayyad claimed his “government’s platform is amongst the most progressive in the region.]” and that it has ensured “transparency, accountability and adherence to the rule of the law.”
Even if true, the incitement to murder Israelis in PA media and schools is reaching deafening decibels. The Bush administration clearly needs a good oronthologist.
Even though Fatah took joint responsibility with Hamas for a suicide bombing that killed an Israeli shopper in Dimona on February 4, the Bush Administration may be considering a PA request to intervene on its behalf in U.S. courts against the families of Palestinian terror victims awarded compensation for the loses.
“Frankly, the Palestinian authority, which is corrupt and cavorts with terror, is not the basis for a Palestinian state moving forward,” said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on June 24, 2002.
The more the PA changed, the more it stayed the same. Incredibly, the only thing that changed was U.S. policy.
Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld is author of Funding Evil; How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It. She is director of the American Center for Democracy and member of the Committee on the Present Danger. Alyssa A. Lappen, Senior Fellow at the ACD, is a former editor for Forbes, Corporate Finance, Working Woman and Institutional Investor.
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12 Comments
1. Peacemonger:What a load of rubbish. The Israel Lobby in the US has done everything to secure disgusting amounts of US aid to murder Palestinian children and thwart every meaningful attempt at a peace effort, spurning every peace gesture from Hamas and the PA. Israel doesn’t want peace, it wants expansion, and the terrorists are the ones sitting in the Israeli cabinet. I don’t see the PA invading its neighbors and continuing its illegal settlements. The article ignores the bellicose incitement in the expansionist apartheid settler state Israel, where children are taught to hate the Palestinians whose land they have stolen.
Feb 16, 2008 - 6:02 am 2. David Thomson:The feckless President George W. Bush is a politically correct whack job. He has a very difficult time dealing with the evils committed by dark skinned people.
Things, however, could have been worse. Al Gore, Jr. and John Kerry are even a greater threat to Israel. Bush is still the lesser of evils.
We must hold on until Bush leaves office and hopefully John McCain takes over the reins of government. What happens if either Barack “Barry” Obama or Hillary Clinton wins the contest? In that case, both Israel and the United States are royally screwed. Western Civilization will likely enter into a new dark age.
Feb 16, 2008 - 6:45 am 3. allyson rowen taylor:This article is terrific, even thought the news is distressing. The enemy seems to have been able to morph from “terrorist” to “legitimate” with a signing of a paper, and change of thought. However, the true colors of this enemy lie not with political agendas of a lame duck president, but years of indoctrination and hatred that some funds and a quick uniform change will not hide. We are again, arming our enemy.
Feb 16, 2008 - 6:59 am 4. Laura:“spurning every peace gesture from Hamas and the PA”.
…………………
What the hell kind of “peace” gestures could you be talking about? Firing qassam rockets? Inciting children to hate and murder Jews?
“The article ignores the bellicose incitement in the expansionist apartheid settler state Israel, where children are taught to hate the Palestinians whose land they have stolen”.
Feb 16, 2008 - 11:08 am 5. Zachary:…………..
peacemonger, the above statement is an inversion of reality. The incitement is all coming from the “palestinian” side. Israeli schools do not incite to hate and kill muslims and Arabs. And the Arabs are the ones who have stolen Jewish land. All of the land of Israel is historically Jewish.
So Bush has said that those who harbor or supply the enemy are the enemy as well.
Um… should we be bombing ourselves then or … um…what?
Yeah. It sounded good in a state of the union address, Dubya, but maybe we should invest our money in America’s interests and national defense instead of throwing lives and money to the middle eastern whackos.
You can never solve a problem by throwing money at it.
Feb 16, 2008 - 11:40 am 6. truepatriot:The idea that the land that your ancestors lived on belongs to you because of your bloodline is an absurd claim. I don’t see anyone rushing to give the Americas back to its native peoples, yet we believe that the Jews deserve a special little place carved out of the already volatile situation in the Middle East. Am I saying that they shouldn’t be allowed to live there? Of course not, but you can’t simply destroy the homes of the people that now live there, so that you can move in yourself. If a Native American came to me and said, “Hey, you know, my ancestors used to live on this land before your ancestors stole it, so I think I have the right to take it back from you.”, I might feel bad for them, but I’m not going to give them my land that is privately owned. That is absurd; one cannot be held accountable for the actions of their predecessors. Do you still consider all Jews guilty of Jesus’ conviction and supposed execution (it’s actually unlikely that he died on the cross, but that is an entirely different public misconception)? So regardless of who the land belonged to before, the Israeli state is still the initial instigator of violence in their own land because they are trying to take back something that they have no claim to. And if you think that using tanks, airplanes and a military controlled by the state makes them any less of terrorists, then you are simply turning a blind eye to the truth. Israel murders innocent men, women and children just a thoroughly as the Palestinian terrorists do, they just have better tools to do it with. I don’t condone the terrorist attacks that cause innocent lives to be lost, but I cannot say that I wouldn’t do the same thing, and neither can anybody until they are faced with a bulldozer destroying their home, complete with the guarantee of physical harm if you don’t go peacefully. All sponsored by your tax dollars.
Feb 16, 2008 - 4:35 pm 7. Yehudit:I think the two of you are Saudi sock-puppets. But I write this for those who come upon this thread and don’t know what to think.
“you can’t simply destroy the homes of the people that now live there, so that you can move in yourself.”
The vast majority of the homes built in Israel were built after 1920 and were never lived in by Arabs. And the Jews built the electrical plants and indoor plumbing and modern roads and hospitals, which the Arabs enjoy.
In fact every time Israel tries to route the border so an Arab village is part of palestine rather than Israel, the locals protest mightily. They would rather live in Israel than in the corrupt violent dysfunctional world of Fatah and Hamas, including Arabs in East Jerusalem. israel and Jordan are the only countries in the Middle East where Palestinians can be full citizens. Arab women have more civil rights in Israel than anywhere in the Arab world.
So if the Jews live under the Arabs, the Arab standard of living takes a serious dive.
Jews have been living there continuously for 3500 years. We have been repeatedly ethnically cleansed - by the Babylonians, the Romans, the Muslims, the Crusaders, since 1880, Arab rioters. We have been driven from our homes.
“Palestine” has never been a country. The last people who owned it before the West came in were the Ottoman Turks, and it was a backwater province. Turkey doesn’t want it. So why are the Arabs who have lived there entitled to make it a country more so than the Jews who have lived there for longer? Why is their bloodline more important?
Feb 16, 2008 - 5:30 pm 8. Bob. S:Thirty billion to Israel over the next ten years from the tax payers of the USA. What for, to continue to steal and build on Palestinian land, more bulldozers to smash poor peoples homes? I am ashamed of my own people. Listen to Uri Avnery, a real Israeli war hero and understand what he says about the occupation of the palestinian home land.
Feb 17, 2008 - 5:24 am 9. Morton Doodslag:There’s some great Nazi satire in this thread.
Feb 17, 2008 - 10:56 am 10. Pips:Bush’s lavish, continued funding of the Palestinian Authority is an irrational act. Stalin’s destruction of millions of Ukranian wheat farmers, although venal beyond measure, was not.
For Stalin was ruthlessly executing a logical next step in a socialist revolution. Bush’s PA funding seeks to curry favor with the country, Saudi Arabia, that more than any other is devoted to the destruction of the USA. Makes no sense.
The strongest country in the world, the USA, is funding thousands of known murderers, the PA, to please the rulers of one of the world’s weakest countries, Saudi Arabia.
Once again, what could be more irrational?
Feb 18, 2008 - 10:04 am 11. marion d s d:Ehrenfeld and Lappen call the reality as it is too often obfuscated by people less acquainted with the facts than they. How many more dollars can the US afford to weaponize into bullets and blood against our own? How many years need we tsk tsk over the tragedy of violence unpalliated? How many US Presidents will continue to shovel dollars at a lethal rabble intoxicated with their own intimidation of the innocent?
marion d s dreyfus
Feb 19, 2008 - 9:10 pm 12. Tom - Washington, DC:Can we legally target USAID as an ‘illicit’ Muslim Brotherhood “Charity”? Of course, I’m asking the question quasi-rhetorically — but only semi-facetiously.
Given the covertly-awful truth of the article, can you imagine turning the original, provocative, civil complaint against Al-Arian’s group into a ‘Qui Tam’ action against USAID contractors?
Where is Sammy Al-Arian when we really need him? Or did Bush-Cheney tap him to administer billions in U.S. aid by USAID to progeny of the Muslim Brotherhood?
Feb 20, 2008 - 6:51 am