Français it Ain’t So [UPDATED]
Français it Ain’t So [UPDATED]
The Palestinians are packing arms in Gaza like sardines, and Jaques Chirac proposes to pick up the tab for Hamass’ payroll.
Palestinian President Ismail Haniyeh said Saturday that he was considering French President Jacques Chirac’s proposal to create a World Bank fund to pay the salaries of Palestinian officials.
Chirac’s office released the proposal Friday after he met with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.
I don’t know who’s worse, Chirac or the Palestinians. I guess I’d have to vote for the former. If the EW–sorry, EU–cut off aid and support the terrorists, the Palestinians would likely have to grow up and behave like responsible adults (change “likely” to “possibly”). By coddling and enabling the death-cultists, Europe has fueled years of additional terror. And never tires of the effort.
ARAB NEWS (Saudi) 29 April ‘06:”Editorial: Funding for Palestine”
A couple of months ago … Hamas boldly predicted that it would find the money elsewhere. … whatever funds may have been sent have amounted to almost nothing. The Palestinian state is now in precisely the crisis that President Mahmoud Abbas predicted. Some 165,000 Palestinian government-employees have not been paid salaries for weeks and have to beg and borrow to survive.
the Palestinian Authority is the largest employer in the West Bank and Gaza - cannot pay their bills …The economy is in dire straits. Doubtless there will be many Arabs, Muslims and friends of the Palestinians incandescent with rage at the notion that the Americans and Europeans should be able to “blackmail” the Hamas government. But far more appalling is that the Palestinian Authority should have become so totally dependent on Western aid. …The lesson that the Palestinians need to take from this disaster is …They cannot allow themselves to ever again slide into a state of neocolonial economic dependency on the US and EU. It is bad politics and it is bad economics. …Arabs and Muslim governments are also complicit in this disaster. Their insufficient giving is what has forced the Palestinians into near absolute dependence on Western aid. Moral support is all very well, but it does not pay salaries or feed mouths.
….The French president’s proposal for the World Bank to take over responsibility for paying Palestinian salaries is a diminution of Palestinian sovereignty … .
The onus is on Arab and Muslim governments. …. Palestinians… will not easily forgive a lack of Arab and Muslim action at this desperate time.