What do do About Palestinian Aid?

National Interest:

But this doesn’t mean the Palestinians should get a free pass. Specifically, Abbas’s recent diplomatic adventurism should not go unpunished. He manufactured the recent crisis at the UN. He also has presided over a corrupt political and economic system.

Until now, fear of an ascendant Hamas has prevented Washington from challenging Abbas. Because the Obama White House cannot identify a legitimate and moderate successor to Abbas, and because Hamas appears to be the only alternative, the PLO journeyman has been free to consolidate power—and, according to some, abuse it.

One egregious example is the Palestine Investment Fund, a sovereign wealth fund that Abbas controls through a board he handpicked and whose by-laws he rewrote. Since 2006, the PIF has awarded contracts exclusively to Abbas’s cronies, including his sons, Yasser and Tareq.

The Abbas family is now said to be worth millions, with lavish property holdings and investments throughout the Middle East.

Moreover, the Abbas machine quietly enriches Hamas as it enriches itself. According to a former Palestinian Authority adviser, Yasser Abbas staffed the Karni Crossing cargo terminal in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip with the stated purpose of ensuring that goods and aid reached Gaza without reaching Hamas. But the customs and border unit at the crossing is not on the Palestinian Authority payroll, and it abuses its monopoly on Gaza’s only cargo terminal to pocket fees and kick them back to Hamas.

The PA also funds an electric power plant in Gaza but allows Hamas to collect the bills. In other words, Hamas raises funds for its operations by billing Gazans for electricity generated by the PA.

What’s needed here is not a wholesale cut in aid, which would punish the Palestinians who have been powerless under Abbas, but a concerted effort to root out PA corruption. This would include U.S. Government Accountability Office audits of Abbas’s presidential budget, international oversight of the PIF, and a much closer look at the troubling financial relationship between the Abbas machine and Hamas in Gaza.

Such an effort would not necessarily mean the end of Abbas’s rule—though his term ended in 2009—but it would entail curtailing his personal power while excising the cancerous parts of Palestinian aid. It would also put Washington back in the driver’s seat during an era of waning American power, keeping Europeans and other regional actors at bay.

Most importantly, it would give the White House and Congress what they both seek: new leverage over the wayward Palestinian leadership.

Palestinians' Shoe-Throwing Extortion

Khaled Abu Toameh:

American diplomats who arrived in Ramallah this week were greeted by angry Palestinian protesters who shouted anti-US slogans and hurled shoes -- the Palestinian Authority claims it was only one pair of shoes -- at their armored vehicles.

The message that the Palestinian Authority is hoping to send through this message to the Americans and others: If you do not endorse our position and if you cut off financial aid, we will turn against you. In one word, it is called extortion.

The problem is not so much with the diplomats as with their governments that allow themselves to be exposed to this extortion time and again. Apparently they like being blackmailed. Instead of demanding changes in behavior, then paying only after the changes have been successfully completed, the governments always seem to pay up front with no demands, and then look surprised when there are no changes and each time the ransom demand goes up.

The US diplomats came to Ramallah to hold a reception in honor of Palestinian partner organizations and US Government exchange program alumni. The American diplomats who were targeted this week were naive enough to think that Palestinians in Ramallah would welcome them with roses and a red carpet.

If anything, this incident shows that US government officials have not been reading the writing on the wall -- namely that the US is viewed by many Palestinians as an enemy, mainly because of its support for Israel. In this specific case, the writing was so big that most Palestinian journalists knew in advance about the planned anti-US protest outside the restaurant.

Scores of Palestinian protesters who gathered outside the Snowbar Restaurant where the reception was being held hurled abuse also at Palestinian journalists who had been invited to the event, urging them to boycott it in protest against the "hostile" policy of the US Administration, and to let the diplomats know that unless their demands were met, there would be more shoe-throwing.

Maybe it's genetics (I mean, what else could it be?) that causese them to think they can tell America how much money to send them, and when America doesn't send all of that because they're planning on embarrasing America at the U.N., they decide to act hostile towards America, thinking that will get America to give in to their demands and once again join hands and sing Kumbaya around a campfire.

"Booo!!!! Death to America! Send us an extra $200 million please!"