For the Price of a Barrel of Oil

Daniel Greenfield
Sultan Knish
14 December '10

Following in the footsteps of Chavez and Castro, Argentina and Brazil's regimes have declared that they recognize Abbas' Palestinian Authority "as a free and independent state within the borders defined in 1967". The Palestinian Authority is of course neither free nor independent. It's a dictatorship that refuses to hold free elections. Or any kind of elections at all. It has neither freedom of speech nor freedom of religion. Or any kind of freedom at all.

Nor is it independent. The Palestinian Authority is funded by the United States and the EU. It has no economy. The only notable employers are the Palestinian Authority itself (subsidized wholly by foreign donors), the UNRWA (subsidized wholly by foreign donors) and Israel. If Brazil and Argentina had declared that the Bronx was now a free and independent state, it would have more credibility, because the Bronx has more of a local economy and a higher standard of human rights, than Arafat's old Fatah gangsters do.

While everyone from the Obama Administration down to Thomas Friedman screams at Israel to give those senile terrorists their own state, they willfully refuse to see that Abbas, Fayad and the rest of the gang, can't even run the territory that they already have. Abbas whined last week, "I cannot be the president of a non-existent Authority as long as Israeli occupation of the West Bank continues."

But when Israel withdrew from Gaza, it turned over the territory to Abbas and the Palestinian Authority. Abbas and the PA couldn't control or police it. As a a result, Hamas took over Gaza. So while Abbas makes excuses about the "occupation", there are no Israelis in Gaza, yet he can't run it either. Despite American weapons and training, the PA's militias (their salaries paid for by American taxpayers) ran like rats from Hamas.

(Read full "For the Price of a Barrel of Oil")

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.