Should Foreign Aid Be Cut Off From Palestinians?

[Morgan]

In my reading of various blogs, I've read heated discussions that have come up as a result of the following 4 articles. I wonder what people here have to say?

1. MEMRI[Middle East Media Research Institute]has just posted a report on common themes of Palestinian weekly Friday sermons, which have been broadcast live on the PA television network, for the years 2000-2003. Each Khatib (preacher) is a paid employee of the Palestinian Authority (PA).

Palestinian Authority Sermons 2000-2003, by S. Stalinsky, Dec.26/03 MEMRI

Common themes are all very ugly , basically calling for the destruction of the USA and the killing of Jews.

My question is: should Arafat get UN/EU/US funding STOPPED asap? Should Arafat be required to step down and go into exile? Suggestions?

2. It would also appear that Palestinian terrorists may be causing mischief in Iraq. More reason to shut off aid to Palestine?Ameri Taheri talks about the terrorists in Iraq, including Palestinians, Dec.30/03, Nat'l Review

What looks like a consensus is emerging in sections of the Arab media that regarded the toppling of Saddam Hussein as a catastrophe for Arab nationalism. The consensus, set by the antiwar daily Al Quds, published in London, is that Saddam's arrest would enable other "resistants" to come forward and fight "the occupation." The paper's editor-in-chief, Abdul-Bari Attwan, a British citizen of Palestinian origin, believes that many Iraqis did not fight the Coalition because they did not want to be regarded as Saddam's fedayeen."With Saddam out of the picture, the resistance can mobilize all of Iraq's Arab nationalistic energies," Attwan says.

...The third group could be described as the civilian wing of the insurgency and presents itself as "the true Baath." It is led by Muhsin Khudhair al-Khafji who has just declared himself president of the Iraqi section of the pan-Arab Socialist Baath party. A former security officer, al-Khafji who spent some time studying in France, is clearly trying to provoke bloody clashes between Iraqi civilians and the occupation forces in Baghdad and some of its Sunni suburbs in the west and north.Last week al-Khafji succeeded in setting up website, possibly with the help of Baathist elements in Algeria. He also seems to have restored contacts with Baath-party branches created by Iraq in Yemen, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and Morocco.Al-Khafji has also maintained contacts with more than a dozen non-Iraqi, mostly Palestinian, terrorists, and guerrilla organizations that Saddam had financed and supported over the years. His contact man with some of those groups is one Khamis Sarhan al-Muhammad, once head of the Baath branch in Karbala, in central Iraq.

3. Is the EU knowingly funding a "proxy war" against America through its aid to Arafat? Should anything be done by Bush/America?Arab Intifada Is European Proxy War On America , Dec.24/03, Arutz Sheva

"It is an open secret within the European Parliament that EU aid to the Palestinian Authority has not been spent correctly," MP Schroeder said during a recent address in New York. "The European Parliament does not intend to verify whether European taxpayers' money could have been used to finance anti-Semitic murderous attacks. Unfortunately, this fits well with European policy in this area."

MP Schroeder, a twenty-five-year-old former member of the German Green Party, began her political career protesting the war in Kosovo and denouncing globalization. A year ago, MP Schroeder set her sights on an issue long avoided by members of the radical Left - the diverting of some of the 250 million in annual aid for the Arabs of Yesha (Judea, Samaria and Gaza) to corrupt officials and terrorist groups bent on Israel's destruction. MP Schroeder managed to initiate an inquiry by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) into the issue despite significant pressure from her colleagues and fellow parliamentarians to ignore it.

MP Schroeder has derided her colleagues who wish to ignore the issue of EU money funding terrorism against Jews as "simple-minded anti-Semites." She has also accused EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten of "winking approval of terrorist attacks funded by the EU ."

4. A Canadian professor from Trent University, Michael Neumann, was forced to apologize for outrageous comments he made in Nov./02. The following article gives the background story. But it would appear that Neumann kept up his questionable/distasteful[?] rhetoric in articles featured in Counterpunch as well as his latest in LAT Dec. 30. Is Neumann crossing the line? Or is Neumann merely indulging his right of free speech? Professor Neumann is Jewish.Cdn.Jewish Congress confronts Trent U over professor's comments, Aug.13/03

Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) has written a letter of complaint to Trent University president Bonnie Patterson requesting a meeting over an apparent exchange of e-mails between a Trent professor and a Web site that compiles links to articles about “Jewish power.”

The correspondence is posted on Jewish Tribal Review’s Web site and is attributed to Trent philosophy professor Michael Neumann as part of a discussion on anti-Semitism on Nov. 25, 2002.The Jewish Tribal Review describes itself as a compilation of links to online articles “about Jewish and Zionist influence in popular culture, Jewish ethnocentrism, Jewish power, Jewish wealth, American Judeocentrism, and Jewish political lobbying.”In response to the question of whether the Jewish Tribal Review is anti-Semitic, Neumann apparently states, “I do, but I don’t get bent out of shape about it. ”

The e-mail correspondence goes on to state, “My sole concern is indeed to help the Palestinians, and I try to play for keeps. I am not interested in the truth, or justice, or understanding, or anything else, except so far as it serves that purpose.”The Web site quotes Neumann as writing, “I should perhaps have said I am very interested in truth, justice and understanding, but right now I have far more interest in helping the Palestinians. I would use anything, including lies, injustice and obfuscation, to do so. If an effective strategy means that some truths about the Jews don’t come to light, I don’t care. If an effective strategy means encouraging reasonable anti-Semitism or reasonable hostility to Jews, I don’t care. If it means encouraging vicious racist anti-Semitism, or the destruction of the State of Israel, I still don’t care.”

When it becomes clear in the e-mail exchange that the comments will be published, Neumann apparently writes, “When I said that I would do anything, including lie and obfuscate, to help the Palestinians, I meant the sort of thing that someone would mean who said he would do anything, including lie and obfuscate, to save the lives of his parents… It is a statement of commitment, not a strategic announcement… In fact, I do not lie or obfuscate in anything I write, because that would hurt the Palestinians.”

CJC executive director Bernie Farber said in an interview that Neumann’s apparent willingness in the Jewish Tribal Review to encourage “vicious, racist anti-Semitism” has moved beyond “what is considered proper political discourse.”Farber added that Neumann’s apparent comments about lying in the name of anti-Semitism should be of grave concern to the faculty and administration of Trent and that students at Trent should not be subjected to Neumann’s willingness to instrumentalize anti-Semitism.“How can students have faith in a professor who appears to have embraced deception as a legitimate tool of influence?” Farber asked.

Here's his latest contribution to LA Times, using a velvet glove approach to deliver the same message he did before.

Anti-semitism, a minor problem, overblown, by Michael Neumann, LA imes, Dec.28/03

Jewish and non-Jewish commentators alike have deplored a recent upsurge in anti-Semitism. In Europe, journalist Andrew Sullivan says, "Not since the 1930s has such blithe hatred of Jews gained this much respectability in world opinion."

Yet, Jews like myself and the Israeli journalist Ran HaCohen feel quite differently. If both sides agree on anything, it's that the definition of "anti-Semitism" has been manipulated for political ends.

Leftists accuse ardent Zionists of inflating the definition to include —and discredit — critics of Israel. Zionists accuse the left of deflating the definition to apologize for covert prejudice against Jews.What then prevents someone from concluding that anti-Semitism must be, at least in some cases, justifiable, courageous, highly moral? Is this a message any prudent Jew or anti-racist would want to encourage ?

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear Morgan,

I shall only reply to the first two, as they are closely related. Lots of times, aid monies do not make it to the 'poor' of a country, the funds get 'skimmed' heavily, usually going to the military, and exacerbating problems. It would be expected, and looks to be true, that Palestine would be doing the same thing. Arafat should be removed for many reasons, skimming monies from charities for terrorism would only be one of them.

My brother worked in Africa for 4 years, and he told me to NEVER send money for famine relief, etc. 50% comes off the top for the dictatorial regime and they are usually the ones causing the problems in the first place. At the time my brother was there, it was the Ethiopian famine in the early 80's. As cold-hearted as it seemed, he said, there was no doubt that western aid contributed to making things worse.

[Morgan]

Flea,

Thanks for your feedback to the first 2 items. Maybe I packed too many "discussion points" in one topic? If so, my apologies.

Anyways, I agree with you and more.

I believe that foreign aid requires some level of acknowledgement from the receipients and re-payment in terms of living up to some positive goals by the donors.

Why should Arafat and the Palestinians automatically expect foreign without doing something to show they deserve it?

And that goes for other Third World countries. too.

What are they and their leaders doing to change their self-defeating or dangerous behaviour? It boogles my mind that the West hands over billions of dollars to these countries with no accountability and no demand for change.

Maybe if the Palestinians were required to turf Arafat before getting a dime and maybe if the Palestinians were required to show new housing developments, schools, hospitals EACH YEAR before aid was renewed the world would be better off.

[Craig Read]

Morgan, Canada ties 80 % of its foreign aid via CIDA to buy Canada goods programs. The PLA is NOT a large recipient of aid from Canada. But your articles on Cdn rhetoric supporting terror in Palestine by Neuman and others points to the disturbing psychosis within Canada that the democratic, Western styled Jewish state, formed after centuries of pograms and holocausts is somehow 'unworthy'. Such moral equivalency has destroyed Canada's foreign policy and its reputation.

We are mental and moral lightweights.

As for the PLA it receives U$300mn per year DIRECTLY from the EU. The US sends about the same via NGO's and IGO groups and tries to monitor via the IMF where the money goes. The EU does not. As such your statement 'Is the EU Fighting a proxy war' is accurate. The French and Germans are funding terror regimes around the globe - i posted the list in another thread with $ values attached. They fund regimes that sponsor terror and importantly these regimes receive no funding from the US.

The only thing preventing the destruction of ugly Arafat and his uglier terrorist regime is the US. For domestic consumption US gov'ts tie Israel's hands and threaten to withdraw 5 billion in aid, if they are too tough on the PLA.

Time to retract this policy and let Israel destroy the PLA and rebuild with saner Palestinian elements a new Palestinian state.

Contrary to CBC hysteria Israel would accept a stable peaceful Palest. state.

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear Mr. Read,

Contrary to CBC hysteria Israel would accept a stable peaceful Palest. state.

This is not entirely accurate. While you may have Canadian Jewish friends that would accept this notion, most in Israel do not. The majority in Israel feel that 'Yesha' is promised them by G-d himself. Even the editorial cartoons in Arutz Sheva show contept for the US and it's 'roadmap'. There was even a cartoon showing Condoleeza Rice nailing a 'roadmap' over a red-faced Ariel Sharon's mouth. Hardly a 'willing' agreement. Most of the op-eds are dead set against ANY palestinian state. It is the 'promised land', not Palestine.

[Craig Read]

The CBC is pro terror basically - intoning that the US is to blame for 9-11 and portraying, Afgh. and Iraq as disasters.

The CBC is a joke. It never presents facts - only its opinions. Anti-US and Anti-Jew. It is fodder for the sick of mind.

Some facts on the PLA and the world's ugliest man:

Arafat's PA was created in 1994 and has has presided over the collapse of the Palestinian economy. He was given billions in aid, and squandered what he and his cronies didn't steal. GDP has collapsed since 1994 by nearly 70 percent, and Palestinians have seen their collective national net worth reduced by more than two thirds. Good job boys.

Virtually nothing remains of a once reasonably vibrant private sector. Corruption exists on a scale that even the normally approving Europeans have trouble [only some it should be said] accepting. Public infrastructure has disintegrated. Public health standards, in 1993 the highest in the Arab world, are among the lowest. And the disastrously self-destructive terrorist war against Israel that Arafat started in September 2000, has reduced Palestinians to the most desperate conditions they have seen since the creation of Israel in 1948.

But the US and the Jews are to blame !!

In a typical year the PA receives about $600 mn from the international community. It also gets about $800 million in tax revenues collected by Israel from Palestinian Arabs. Last year when the PA released its annual financial report, $323 million - nearly 40% of the annual budget - was "missing." Yasser Arafat is believed to have personally benefited, possibly with billions of dollars flowing into personal accounts. Yet, the world community continues to make donations to Arafat's organizations in order to try to buy peace, a process that is usually called extortion. The IMF has stated that the PA and Arafat are stealing money - yet it still flows.

Arafat and his coterie of unofficial economic "advisors," in the words of Pal. expert David Hirst:

... have thrown up a ramshackle, nepotistic edifice of monopoly, racketeering and naked extortion, which merely enriches them as it further impoverishes the society at large.

An investigation by Newsweek in 2000, on the brink of the Camp David talks, revealed abuses at almost every level of the Palestinian Authority. Said Newsweek:

Many top ministers staff their offices with cronies, dole out valuable contracts without oversight and create their own monopolies, which crush competition and drive up prices paid by hard-pressed consumers. The courts are powerless because Arafat simply ignores any inconvenient rulings. His 14 separate police forces enforce the whims of PA officials rather than laws aimed at protecting ordinary Palestinians. "It's a mafia state," says Abdul Jawad Saleh, a former Agriculture minister who was beaten by security forces recently for leading an anticorruption protest.

No kidding this is why the EU loves Arafat. It mimics its own technocratic corruption. It allows the EU to dream it is a 'player' in the Near East which it is not.

France and Germany are funding terror and by extension are responsible for civilian deaths. They like Chretien should be tried at the ICJ - after all isn't that what the court is all about ??? Whoops sorry i forget that Jews were exempted.

[Morgan]

Flea said:

While you may have Canadian Jewish friends that would accept this notion, most in Israel do not. The majority in Israel feel that 'Yesha' is promised them by G-d himself. Even the editorial cartoons in Arutz Sheva show contept for the US and it's 'roadmap'.

Where's your link to the article that gives statistics/poll results to support your claim that "most in Israel" do not accept a notion of a Palestinian state?

1. Golly gee, if my memory serves me right, just 3 short years ago, Israeli PM Barak(whom I assume represented the majority of Israelis since he was duly elected) agreed to statehood for Palestinians along with 99% of their other demands.

BUT Yassar Arafat threw the Camp David Accord in Barak's face because Arafat INSISTED that East Jerusalem - with its important religious sites - be the capital of a future Palestinian state.

So tell me again which side is coveting religious sites in the Holy Land...but this time please support your claims.

2. Fast forward three years later we hear that Israel is so desperate for peace that Sharon is even willing to work with Egypt to broker peace with Palestinians, against the best judgement of the USA...and then what do we hear at the end of December...same story...the Palestinians thumb their noses at Israel AND Egypt, even going so far as to beat up the Egyptian envoy.

So tell me again about those hard line Israelis again...but this time put your glasses on, Flea, when you're reading the newspapers...it's PALESTINIANS who don't want dual states living side by side. They want all of Israel. They sabotage dual statehood talks every chance they get.

3. Even the Egyptians say Palestinians are nuts, their own worst enemies, and if it weren't for the Palestinians' hatred and mischief, countries like Egypt could have lived in peaceful co-existence with Israel since 1973. Think about it, Flea. Arabs themselves are now labelling Palestinians as s**t disturbers in the ME.

It's no accident that Kuwait expelled 350,000 Palestinian residents right after the first Gulf War. Pronto. No if's but's or maybe's. Get lost, the Kuwaitis said and no one said boo. Palestinians in Lebanon are subject to severe restrictions on work, residence, travel, education, and political organization and expression to keep them from causing trouble. No one says boo. Well, of course, it's Syria/Lebanon's right. Syria did take over Lebanon, didn't it?

But when the Israelis erect a wall to protect themselves from terrorism and the wall is running through land that rightfully belongs to Israel, the mindless yahoos in CBC and the UN are in a tizzy and say the wall just proves Israel doesn't want a nation for Palestinians, it shows no respect for Palestinians.

4. The road map for peace is stupid. I have no doubt that Sharon was cynical about its merits and had to be forced to sign on. Been there, done that...same results.

IMHO, Rice, Powell, Bush, Blair are stupid for thinking the road map can be anything more than nice photo ops.

Hello, people...no peace can come with Arafat and his thugs at the leadership, who openly support and sanction terrorism. Corruption at that top and in middle management can not make for a successful compant or state for that matter.

The PA's mental illness of hate is now being promoted in the young with the Friday sermons. There won't be a functional state of Palestinine for a very, very long time as far as I'm concerned road maps or not.

Tell me. Would you want to live across the border from Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority and Hamas and the dozen or more Palestinian "jihadists? " You'd want him as your next neighbour? Oh, oh, I get it now...you believe people can change with love and understanding. Get real.

4. You talk about cartoons about Palestinians - show me the links - no Israeli newspaper ever would refer to Jews as monkeys and vampires, but Arab newspapers do on a routine basis. No Israeli leader today calls for suicide bombers against civilians and refers to these filthy murderers as "martyrs," but the Palestinian's leader does that very thing 24/7. Mein Kempf is a bestseller in Arab countries.

And here's what the very civilized left wing elite in the UK picked as their best political cartoon of the year[Nov.26/03 via Instapundit] to show how much they love to denigrate Israel and its leaders.

Israel would never give such an "honour" to an anti-Muslim cartoon. In fact, Israelis have some of the greatest numbers of left wing bleeding hearts in the world and it's this naive mindset, IMHO, that puts Israel at peril when negotiating with the likes of Arafat and the stooges at the UN.

Prize winning UK cartoon about Sharon is protested by Israel Embassy in London

The Israeli Embassy in London has sent a strongly worded letter of protest to The Independent, following an editorial cartoon yesterday by Dave Brown, depicting Prime Minister Ariel Sharon biting the flesh of a Palestinian baby.In the cartoon, Sharon says: "What's wrong? Have you never seen a politician kissing a baby?" The background shows Apache attack helicopters sending missiles from the cockpit with the message "Vote Likud ."

To give this cartoon an award is something which should make all the "enlightened, so called neutral" ME peaceniks in the West, including Canada, hang their heads in shame.

[Craig Read]

The left is hardly neutral as you stated Morgan they are pathologically anti-semitic [see the rise of violence against Jews in Europe and do a troll of Cdn media vitriol against Israel]. The Palestinians have a homeland - it is called Jordan. So let's look at Jordan - how many Palestinians are allowed into the country. The answer is very few. Originally Jordan was created by the British to be a homeland for the Palestinian Arabs - but even today Jordan which has developed its own socio-economic and foreign policy programs wants little to do with Palestinians. Perhaps the Jordanians know something that is obvious to all except the BBC and CBC - that the PA is a rotten corrupt dirty regime and the Palestinian people - brainwashed fanatics who are desperate enough to engage in any violence. Even officials inside the PA admit that it is a fascist organisation:

Many top ministers staff their offices with cronies, dole out valuable contracts without oversight and create their own monopolies, which crush competition and drive up prices paid by hard-pressed consumers. The courts are powerless because Arafat simply ignores any inconvenient rulings. His 14 separate police forces enforce the whims of PA officials rather than laws aimed at protecting ordinary Palestinians. "It's a mafia state," says Abdul Jawad Saleh, a former Agriculture minister who was beaten by security forces recently for leading an anticorruption protest.

The PA and Arafat have to be destroyed.

So let's do it and forget the Martyr objection - i am sure Stalin and Hitler apologists mentioned the same.

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear Morgan,

4. You talk about cartoons about Palestinians - show me the links

Go to www.israelnationalnews.com, and click on 'caricatures' by Jacky. Image 12 and 15 are what I refer to. there are also references to Mein Kampf and other things you mention.

Please read a few of the op-ed articles before you state

but this time put your glasses on, Flea, when you're reading the newspapers...it's PALESTINIANS who don't want dual states living side by side.

It is both who refuse to come to terms.

I have never 'supported' Arafat, the PLO, Hamas, etc, I have merely pointed out the fact that Israel is not blameless. I dislike it when people assume that one must 'choose sides' as Bush and Israel use as is their wont.

Being anti-zionist does not assume one is pro-Palestine.

I would rather see these biblical lands become 'the Holy Land' and have neither side assume complete control. Both seem to think that G-d or Allah called the shots centuries ago, and are fighting to this day under those auspices.

I find it utterly ridiculous.

[Morgan]

Fleabag,

Of course you have to choose sides. To do anything less is putting your head in the sand.

It's clear that Israel has both an historical and military right to its territory. Palestinians cannot claim either right. "Palestinians" are generic Arabs. The name "Palestinians" did not appear until the 17th century.

URL=http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110003690]WSJ June 30/03 Israel's historical right to nationhood[/url]

When, some years ago, Golda Meir contentiously remarked, "There are no Palestinians," she was historically correct and evolutionally mistaken.

She was right because the people who had only recently begun to take on the name "Palestinian" were ethnically and civilizationally Arab, part of what the Arabs themselves were pleased to call, with the poetic resonance of indivisibility, "the Arab Nation. "

Whether the Palestinians nowadays constitute a cult or a sect or a nation within the greater Arab world is scarcely to the point. They have become a nation in their own eyes --and, with the blessings of the road map, internationally as well.

No one can refute the truth that the Palestinians have fashioned a culture peculiarly their own--but one so steeped in the negative as to have been turned into a kind of anti-history. In order to deprive Jews of their patrimony, Palestinians have fabricated a sectarian narrative alien to commonplace knowledge. Although the Arab invasion of Palestine did not occur until the 17th century, Palestinian Arabs are declared to be, according to activist Salah Jabr, "the descendants of civilizations that have lived in this land since the Stone Age." 

With equal absurdity, other such deniers of Jewish patrimony claim a Canaanite bloodline. By replacing history with fantasy, the Palestinians have invented a society unlike any other, where hatred trumps bread. And they have been assisted in these deviations by Arab rulers who for half a century have purposefully and pitilessly caged and stigmatized them as refugees, down to the fourth generation. 

Refugeeism, abetted also by the United Nations, has itself been joined to the Palestinian cult of anti-history . A Palestinian ethos of figment and fantasy has successfully infiltrated the West , particularly among intellectuals, who are always seduced by novelty.

I agree with Craig. Palestinians should live in Jordan. That was their designated country by the British, the former ruler in that area. Plus as Craig points out, Jordan is comprised 2/3 of Palestinians already, has an established system of basic government services that Arafat cannot wreck, with a "nice guy" benign leader who would be a heck of alot better for Palestinians than the terrorist they have now.

Let Arafat go back to Egypt. He's not even "Palestinian" for gosh sakes. Arafat is an Egyptian. Or maybe Arafat can move to Paris where his wife and kid live and play bingo with Chirac. Or maybe Arafat could work as Maurice Strong's gofer at the UN. The UN can never have too many corrupt guys working for them.

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear Morgan,

Of course you have to choose sides. To do anything less is putting your head in the sand.

Nonsense. Especially if my personal moral values are above both.

I agree with Craig. Palestinians should live in Jordan.

If you believe that there is no Palestine outside of Jordan or Y'Israel, then you should not refer to them as Palestinians. Perhaps you and Mr. read should call them 'the tresspassers'.

Palestinians should live in Jordan. That was their designated country by the British, the former ruler in that area.

Perhaps we should reset the clock, and go with what the 'pre-WWII British' designated as borders. 1/4 of the globe belonged to them. go back a hundred years from that, or even 2, and divide up the US between Spain, Britain, Mexico, and Britain and see what was left. A few state built on slavery, and oppression of those that were here first.

People were smelting copper in the ME a thousand years before Abraham. History has it's limits. Biblical history is a farce.

[Morgan]

Fleabag,

1. See that's the problem with left wing thinkers. You present them with fact, logic and then their fall back position is always something that is totally irrational like "You can't force me to take a mature, thoughtful stand on political issues" or "History has it's limits...biblical history is a farce..."

Oh do tell.

Stands are pretty easy to take when they smack of being anti-Bush.

And history, biblical or military, has limits only when it shows your position has ZERO logical support for Palestinians claim about their pseudo historic, Biblical right of return.

Otherwise, the left is quite happy to drag out history to blame conservative figures or to explain their own illegal behaviour.

Examples:-America invaded Iraq for the oil in 2003 just like they were going to do in 1973.- There's a picture of Rumsfield shaking Saddam's hand in the 70's, so that means Rumsfield has no moral right to depose Saddam in 2003. -Arnie had group sex when he was in his 20's so that means he is not a role model to run for Governor when he's in his 50's. -America took sides with the Taliban in their fight against Russia in the 80's, so terrorism in Afghanistan is America's fault. -It's okay for illegal immigrants from Mexico to live off the welfare rolls in California, because Mexico lost the Spanish American war and the winner needs to take care of the losers. It's the Geneva Convention you know.

Blah, blah, blah.

Face facts. The Palestinians have ZERO historical or military claim to a Palestinian state. It's obvious.

If Israel chooses to give them land to establish a state in hopes to buy "goodwill" from the established Arab states in the ME, it's up to Israel. Personally, I wouldn't if I were in the Israelis' position.

The Palestinian Arabs have consistently shown themselves incapable of conducting themselves as people ready for their own nation.

Palestinians and the world would be better off if Jordan assimilated them, and Arafat and his thug friends were forced into exile. End of story.

2. Since I started this discussion with a focus on foreign aid, I'm pleased to post a new article that's hot off the wires re: a new approach to the way the US will dole out aid in the future.

Uncle Arafat as well as Egypt and Jordan better listen up. No more "spare change" from Egypt and Jordan to pass along to Palestinians for "intifada wars." Even though it appears that Uncle Arafat likes to skip baths for months and live in a hole in the wall in Ramallah, he can't let his personal hygenic preferences overshadow his responsibilities as a political leader to better the health and living conditions for his people:

US to begin new approach to doling out Foreign Aid, Jan.04/04 New York Post

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A revolution in U.S. foreign aid, rewarding countries for how they govern, is finally ready to get under way, almost two years after first promised by the Bush administration.The program will favor countries whose governments are judged to be just rulers, welcoming hosts for foreign investment and promoters of projects to meet their people's basic health and education needs. Corrupt police states need not apply .

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear Morgan,

See that's the problem with left wing thinkers. You present them with fact, logic and then their fall back position is always something that is totally irrational like "You can't force me to take a mature, thoughtful stand on political issues"

This is quite likely the most asinine things I have ever read on this forum.

If you wish to debate facts, please read links if you request them I have provided proof as per your request and see that you have not even deigned to research one of them. Rather, you attack the 'left' with the childlike impotence of ignorance.

It does not cement your arguments in the slightest.