US Aid, Palestinian Wakaha
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
US Aid, Palestinian Wakaha
by Bassam Tawil , Gatestone Institute, August 27, 2018
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called David Friedman, the US Ambassador to Israel, a "son of a dog" in a televised speech, on March 19, 2018. (Image source: MEMRI video screenshot)
For the past 9 months, the Palestinian leaders have been waging a massive and unprecedented campaign of incitement and abuse against Trump and his administration. This campaign began immediately after Trump announced his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital in December 2017, and the campaign is continuing to this day as a reply to the US decision to slash $200 million from the American financial aid to the Palestinians.
Significantly, the PA and its leaders were the ones who initiated the crisis with the US administration. Their dissatisfaction with Trump's announcement on Jerusalem may be understandable, but they chose to take their protest to an extreme by boycotting the US administration and waging a smear campaign against Trump and his "Jewish advisors and envoys."
It is clear that the Palestinian boycott of the US administration did not include receiving funds from the Americans. One the one hand, the Palestinians have been boycotting and badmouthing US administration officials. On the other hand, Abbas and his representatives are now crying that the US administration is slashing $200 million of its financial aid to the Palestinians. If this isn't cheek in its finest form, what is?
The Arabic word for cheek, by the way, is wakaha . Were Abbas to behave in the same manner towards an Arab country for cutting financial aid to the Palestinians, he would have been accused by his Arab brothers of displaying wakaha at its best. Abbas, however, would think ten times before he uttered a bad word against any Arab country.
The Palestinians are basically telling the Americans: We have the right to condemn you every day, to burn your flags and photos of your president, to incite against you, to launch weekly protests against you, to accuse you of being under the "influence of the Jewish and Zionist lobby" and, at the same time, we have the right to continue receiving US taxpayer money.
Judging from their actions and assertions in the past few months, the Palestinians have turned the US into an enemy. They consider the US to be in "collusion" with the Israeli government and a "full partner in Israeli crimes against the Palestinians." They say they no longer trust the US to play any role in a peace process with Israel because of the Trump administration's "blind bias" in favor of Israel and its "hostile" policies towards the Palestinians.
The Palestinians, of course, are entitled to voice their anger at the US. However, if they are so fed up with the US that they are even boycotting US administration officials, why are they demanding that the Americans continue to supply them with hundreds of millions of dollars each year? Where's the vaunted Arab dignity, which requires an Arab not to humiliate himself in return for money, especially if it comes from someone you consider an enemy?
The answer to this question can be found in a statement issued on August 25 by PLO Secretary-General Saeb Erekat in response to the US decision to cut the $200 million in aid to the Palestinians. "The international community is not doing the Palestinians a favor by providing them with financial aid," Erekat argued. "This is a due duty of the international community, which bears responsibility for the continued Israeli occupation."
Erekat's statement reflects a long-standing Palestinian position according to which the US and the rest of the international community owe the Palestinians money for supporting Israel's existence. The Palestinian position stems from a belief that the international community, specifically the Americans and Europeans, were responsible for the establishment of Israel in 1948 at the cost of the Palestinians. This position was best echoed by Abbas himself, who has said that Israel is a "colonial project" imposed on the Palestinians by Western powers.
This attitude means that the Palestinians have never seen the massive financial aid they have received from the West as a gift but rather as something that the world owes them for imposing a "colonial project" on them. The billions of dollars the Palestinians have received in the past few decades have evidently left no positive impression on the Palestinians, who feel that the funds are something they are fully entitled to because of the world's support for the existence of Israel.
The Palestinians, in other words, apparently do not feel they have to be grateful to those who have been funding them for decades. If the Europeans were to take a similar decision today and cut funding to the Palestinians, they too would be condemned by Abbas and his officials for being "hostile" towards the Palestinians and "biased" in favor of Israel.
The ongoing Palestinian rhetorical attacks on the US administration are dangerous because they further radicalize the Palestinian public and turn the Americans into an enemy in the eyes of many Palestinians. In recent months, we have seen increased hostility towards American officials and citizens visiting the West Bank as a direct result of this incitement.
Last July, the US Consul-General in Jerusalem was forced to cancel a visit to the Palestinian city of Nablus after Palestinians threatened to stage protests against him and his entourage.
A month earlier, Palestinian protesters expelled a US consular delegation from the city of Bethlehem and threw tomatoes at their vehicles. No one was hurt, but the incident, which was documented on camera, was impolite and degrading for the Americans.
The Palestinians are now accusing the US of attempting to "blackmail" them by cutting the funds. According to the Palestinians, the US administration wants to force them to accept Trump's yet-to-be-unveiled plan for peace in the Middle East.
It is worth noting, however, that the US administration has not yet presented its purported plan to the Palestinians or to any other party. So how can the US administration be trying to pressure or "blackmail" the Palestinians when no peace plan has ever been made public? Can the Palestinians point to one US administration official who asked them to accept the unseen plan or support Trump's policies? Of course not.
There is indeed blackmail going on -- but in precisely the opposite direction. The Palestinians are trying to blackmail the US by claiming , absurdly, that the recent US decisions jeopardize the two-state solution and prospects for peace in the Middle East.
These are the very Palestinians, however, who have refused to resume peace talks with Israel for the past four years, since long before Trump was elected as president.
Common sense would have it that the US has a right to demand something from any party it helps to support -- including the Palestinians. But the Palestinians see things differently. In their view, billions of dollars are owed to them as some sort of divine right. And if their behavior calls into question whether they deserve that money -- well, those asking questions can just go back where they came from.
Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.
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The NERVE of the USA cutting off some of its aid for the Palestinians, who provide NO benefit to the USA, DEMONIZE the USA, and use the money to pay terrorists to murder Israelis.
Dear Friend Buzz: Funding the "Pay for Slay" campaign is immoral.
It is good that funding is redirected.
Mr. Abbas and his predecessor, Chazir Arafat had decades to accept all the offers of land for peace from Israel.
Abu Mazzin now presides over a failed national liberation movement.
A victim to his own bombast, he is locked into going down with a reverse George Washington of his country legacy.
This is of his own doing.
He is not the Father of his country.
He and Arafat prevented their own people from having their own country.
What goes around comes around.
Waiting too long means an irreversible lack of self determination for his own people.
Tick tock, tick tock.
Time to take what he can salvage, and let his successors through total recognition of and peaceful co-existence with Israel as a Jewish State with Jerusalem as its undivided Capitol be the pathway for the successful implementation of a two state solution with defensible borders for both.
We know that isn't going to take place.
Pity.
Everyone should have a safe secure land in which to call their own shots.
His people need to do a better job of electing a government which represents the best interests of their people.
Running ever failing attempts of exterminating a stronger nation will not do.
It is the wrong side of history.
Peace, Abundant Blessings, Safety and Freedom for All.
Enoch.
Uh, actually they are right- as anyone that has studied history can attest.
Then there is the Balfour Declaration
As I have stated repeatedly the US should withdraw from the ME- so scaling down aid to the Palestinians doesn't bother me. We don't need them; their constant headaches; their resources; or the drain they put on us financially. That being said; anyone pretending that the Palestinians didn't get a raw deal in the colonialization hasn't studied history.
Note: I have not support the Palestinians since the late 80's early 90's, they have had their chances and blown it. Until they remove their corrupt governments in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and unify; they will never be on strong enough footing to hope to negotiate any lasting peace. Nor, do I support Israel that has done everything in their power to keep the Palestinians divided both politically and geographically. Accomplished with the massive assistance of US tax payer dollars and military aid.
Prove that bullshit.
He can't. The US owes the Palestinians nothing but contempt for their barbarism.
Prove it? Just look at a map. There is no physical corridor between the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Travel between the two sections is extremely restricted. How does Israel expect the PA to rein in Hamas in Gaza when they cannot put a physical presence there? Not that the PA would have the backbone to do it; and if they did they would be replacing once corrupt government with another.
Restricting goods into and out of the West Bank and Gaza strip. Sure, blame Egypt and Jordan. Both are scared shitless of Israel; they are not going to allow anything in or out that might provoke even the slightest response from Israel. Israel does what it wants, when it wants, militarily speaking. Borders be damned.
Settlements in the West Bank. No country in the world recognizes them as being legal. Yet they are expanded and new ones pop up. Israel blasts the PA for not being more forceful against Hamas. The settlements are the #1 recruiter for Hamas. Hamas forced Israel out of Gaza; the Palestinians in the West Bank have received nothing for their capitulation to Israel. The PA is now seen as a big of a problem as Israel. They are more interested in keeping iron fisted control; than standing up to Israeli expansion.
The US is not an unbiased partner in negotiations. Israel is the number one beneficiary by far and away of US financial and military aid.
Apparently you missed this portion of my post. I have nothing against the US cutting all aid to the Palestinians. We are not an unbiased party in the negotiations, and the aid is used as a chain to get the PA to do what the US wants.
As for the Palestinians and their "barbarism". Have you ever met a true Palestinian? I don't mean watching the PA organized demonstration or Hamas sponsored flag burning, rock hurling, tire fire setting riot. I mean a true Palestinian that went to college in the US; and whose father became a legal US citizen. One that had a large extended family back in the West Bank and Gaza Strip? Most Palestinians care about survival- that is it. A steady paycheck, a roof over their heads, and food on the table. They don't have time to get caught up in anything else. Nor do they have the arms or organization to make the change.
Israel could have defanged Hamas and the PA long ago; but it would have taken a sacrifice they never would make. A unified viable Palestine territory with no settlements; and free trade allowed w/o repercussions to their neighbors.
But yes, you are correct the PA and Hamas are barbarians that don't care about their people, or their suffering. That much I will agree with you on.
Instead of blaming Israel for not joining together lands that have two different "governments", the West Bank and Gaza (after all, did Israel separate them?), a problem Israel never caused, why don't you come up with a viable solution? Personally, I like "The Jordan Option":
But even before I knew about The Jordan Option, I dreamed up a solution myself. I thought that Israel and Egypt should contribute lands contiguous to Gaza, carved out of the Sinai, that would be equal to the West Bank, and move all the West Bank and East Jerusalem Palestinians there who did not want to remain in a Jewish State, with Israel taking over the lands that were dedicated to the Jews by the 1922 Mandate. Provided the governing body of the New Palestine would give up their dedication to wipe Israel off the map, all Palestine would have Mediterranean access, could make it the Riviera of the Arab world. Sure it would cost a lot, just as The Jordan Option would, but it would be worth it for the whole world to pay for in order to end the conflict and the unending high aid cost.
So instead of finding things to blame Israel for, just as most of the world blames Israel for everything from the earthquakes to the eclipse of the sun, think of a solution to the problem. After all:
The Palestinian and Gaza citizens, if not soaked in Jew-hating Israel-bashing propaganda from birth are NOT bad people, but those who want to normalize relations are demonized, Palestinian journalists who try to tell it like it is are imprisoned, and terrorists are rewarded. My son was a counselor for two years at the Seeds of Peace Camp in Maine, where Palestinian and Israeli children were bunked together in cabins. At first the Palestinian kids were fearful, and hateful, and by the end of the camp program were hugging and kissing each other and promising to write and visit each other. That could have been the result in Israel and the territories, but for the corruption of the PA and Hamas, and their need to keep the conflict going for their own ends.
Note that Hamas was largely created by Israel to counter the PLO. Without Israel's meddling and its money, Hamas wouldn't exist.
Largely created? LOL. You exaggerate with intent to discredit Israel - no surprise to me. Israel may have helped Hamas' prececessor for good reasons until it turned vicious and against Israel. Being known here as a movie buff, I will quole Steve McQueen in The Magnificent Seven: "It seemed like a good idea at the time." Many nations, including the USA, probably look back to many examples of well-intentioned acts being turned against them.
They should not be given any of US taxpayers money