Palestinian Officials Condemn US for Offering to Help - by Khaled Abu Toameh

It is as if someone applies for a loan from a bank but demands that the bank accept his or her demands, and not the other way around. Usually, those who offer the money have the right to set the conditions.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
21 February '20..

Palestinian leaders have gone to great lengths to explain their opposition to US President Donald Trump's recently unveiled plan, "Peace to Prosperity," for Middle East peace.

While these leaders are entitled to oppose Trump's vision for peace, it is not clear why they are also rejecting US financial aid to Palestinians. By rejecting it, Palestinian leaders are denying their people the right to a better life and a strong economy.

The US Embassy in Israel has a Palestinian Affairs Unit that regularly offers Palestinians grants and funding opportunities that include, for students, US higher education and scholarships.

Recently, the Unit announced an open competition for grants to Palestinian individuals and not-for-profit organizations to implement activities that advance the organization's or individual's goals -- particularly if those goals include a comprehensive, lasting, negotiated peace between Israelis and Palestinians, a prosperous, stable, and transparent Palestinian society, economy and system of governance.

The program's main objectives are to provide students with the skills and experiences that will make them more competitive for higher education and work opportunities; build a culture of mentorship that cultivates leaders in Palestinian society, education and business; encourage citizens' engagement in participatory governance; foster entrepreneurship, critical thinking and problem-solving skills among the youth and between diverse communities, and to promote understanding, tolerance, pluralism and shared values.

The US Embassy's Palestinian Affairs Unit also announced a new funding opportunity to establish English-language summer camps for young Palestinians, and an open competition for Palestinian organizations to hold a conference on social media marketing for e-commerce.

These programs seem intended for the benefit of Palestinian youths. You would think that, notwithstanding political differences or controversy surrounding a peace plan, any leader who actually cared about the well-being of his or her people would welcome such an offer. You would be wrong.

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Palestinian Leaders, Corruption and the Fear of Opinion Polls - by Khaled Abu Toameh

Palestinian leaders fear that reports about corruption could contribute to a drying up of international funding of the PA. If donor countries got whiff of the fact that their taxpayers' money is being squandered and stolen by senior PA officials, the cash cow might just kick over the PA bucket

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
27 December '19..

Palestinian Authority leaders are upset: a survey published on December 11 by Transparency International, a global organization that "gives voice to the victims and witnesses of corruption," found that corruption is increasing in the PA and in five Arab countries.

Transparency International said that its survey, called "Global Corruption Barometer (GCB) – Middle East and North Africa," revealed that "almost two-thirds of all people (65%) in six countries surveyed think that corruption is getting worse in their country, and that their governments are not doing enough to end corruption."

The GCB report, one of the largest, most detailed surveys of citizens' views on corruption and experiences of bribery, incorporates the views of more than 6,600 citizens from Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Sudan and Tunisia, according to Transparency International.

"For the first time, the GCB also measures the prevalence of wasta, or the use of personal connections, to access public services, in three countries: Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine," it said in a statement. "Despite the relatively low bribery rates in countries like Jordan and Palestine, citizens often resort to wasta in order to get public services they need."

According to the survey, more than one in three Jordanians, Palestinians and Lebanese who accessed pubic services used wasta in the previous 12 months. "This is equivalent to approximately 3.6 million people," Transparency International noted.

The survey also found that "in Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan, one in five people experiences sexual extortion -- or sextortion -- when accessing a government service, or knows someone who has."

In addition, the survey revealed that one in five Arabs, including Palestinians, paid a bribe to access public services, such as health care and education.

Majdi Abu Zaid, Executive Director of the Palestinian Coalition for Accountability and Integrity (AMAN), said that the findings of Transparency International were consistent with a recent poll his group conducted among Palestinians.

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Question. Can Any Good Come of USA Disengagement From the Palestinian Authority? - by Sheri Oz

...In view of potential imminent collapse, will Israel step up and do what some individuals in the PA have told me they pray for? Will Israel save the Palestinian Authority from itself and declare sovereignty over Judea and Samaria (if not Gaza, which is an entirely different matter), giving citizenship to those who wish to declare loyalty to the Jewish state in return for the freedom to earn a good living, raise healthy families and achieve their personal ambitions? In other words, to live as Middle Eastern Arabs and non-Arab minorities outside of Israel can only dream of?

Sheri Oz..
Israel Diaries..
04 February '19..

First, the USA stopped funding UNRWA. Then they stopped funding USAID, the body through which funds were directed to the various American and international humanitarian aide organizations that provided much needed help and services to the people living under the Palestinian Authority (PA). And finally, just a few days ago, the last of the military personnel supporting the security services in the PA were withdrawn. According to a local source, only one American military advisor remains and that is because he bought a house in Bethlehem for personal reasons.

The PA administration has not fought these reductions in funding. In fact, a Congressional study entitled, US Foreign Aid to the Palestinians, quoted a source that suggested that Palestinian leaders

have determined “that the limited U.S. foreign assistance currently received is far outweighed by the potential liability to which they would be subjected if they were to accept it.”

And what is that liability? In October 2018, the American Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act was amended in such a way as to declare that foreign bodies not generally under American legal jurisdiction can be considered to be so if they accept American funds. The Palestinian Authority decided they stood to lose more money in claims submitted to the courts by survivors of American victims of Palestinian Arab terrorism than they gain with American aid.

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The lost art of Palestinian 'protection money' - by Dr. Reuven Berko

...Hamas is still pursuing its self-declared goal of exterminating each and every Jew "hiding behind every rock and tree;" but in Gaza the only thing to be found behind the rocks and trees are unemployment, illness, drugs and despair.

Dr. Reuven Berko..
Israel Hayom..
29 January '19..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/the-lost-art-of-palestinian-protection/

An analysis of the Palestinian arena points to a terminal split and dead end. The Palestinian Authority has chosen now, of all times, to reject American aid money, while Hamas openly scoffed at Qatar's humanitarian aid yet immediately accepted it through the back door.

Throughout history, the PLO's terrorist tentacles – and the Palestinian "sumud" (steadfastness) at its core – have been funded by Arab countries and the West, in a lethal brew of fear-mongering and anti-Semitism. Many of the countries were essentially paying "protection money," either willingly or through blackmail, to help resolve the "Palestinian problem" and out of concern that the PLO would do them harm. Other countries used the organization as an "attack dog," a proxy to pursue their interests.

At the same time, Palestinian terror was used against us as a "bonus" to leverage the PLO's main existence as a corrupt, parasitic and profitable economic entity (similar to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency). The reality, however, has changed. Now the Western coalition is fighting alongside the Arabs against Islamic terror. But everyone remembers that the Palestinian (and their Muslim Brotherhood) architects of terror are in essence the "mentors" for these radical Islamist terrorist groups currently perceived as a global disease.

In the meantime, the Palestinian issue has been marginalized and is threatening to "burn the house down," as the world is focused on the threat posed by Iran and its proxies in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. As Israel's relations with the Arabs gradually improves, the Palestinians are realizing – helped by American aid cuts to UNRWA's budget – the fictitious narrative of Palestinian refugeehood is dissipating.

While Israel is viewed as a vital component in the regional alliance against terror, the Palestinian Authority is still confined in a straitjacket, drumming on about "refugees" returning to Israel in a flood and that Jerusalem – the reason for Zionism – will become their capital through international pressure.

How, then, can the PA president – who orchestrates this terror, collects the protection money and whose existence depends on donor states – dare to reject American aid money earmarked for the security apparatuses assisted by Israel to keep him in power?

The millionaire Palestinian Authority president's brazen rejection of American money stems from Hamas' accusations that he is an Israeli collaborator (which is true), and from the American demand that the PA expose itself to lawsuits by victims of terror. No crime syndicate would concede to having its extortion money return to its victims. PA President Mahmoud Abbas is struggling to internalize that without this collaboration with Israel, Hamas would devour his government and the assets he has amassed through corruption, very similar to the situation in Gaza.

Palestinian messaging: When you do try to help us, we reserve the right to spit in your face. - by Bassam Tawil

In reality, the Palestinians have one main message for the US administration: We hate you and incite against you, but we fully expect that you will continue providing us with cash, to the tune of billions of dollars.

Bassam Tawil..
Gatestone Institute..
07 September '18..

Once again, the Palestinians are conveying conflicting messages about their attitude towards US President Donald Trump's administration. On one side, they are condemning the Trump administration for its decision to cut all US aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA); on the other, the Palestinians are opposed to any plan by the US administration to provide them with financial aid and improve their living conditions.

This Palestinian stance is not only bad-faith double-dealing, it also reflects the state of confusion and uncertainty among the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah in particular and the Palestinian public in general.

In reality, the Palestinians have one main message for the US administration: We hate you and incite against you, but we fully expect that you will continue providing us with cash, to the tune of billions of dollars. And, when you do try to help us, we reserve the right to spit in your face.

This is the message -- despite much duplicitous obfuscation -- that the Palestinians have long sought to communicate the US.

Now to the facts.

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Clearly the Palestinian boycott of the US administration did not include receiving funds from the Americans - by Bassam Tawil

The Palestinians 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?

Bassam Tawil..
Gatestone Institute..
27 August '18..

The question of Palestinian responsiveness is once again on display as Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and his senior officials in Ramallah step up their verbal attacks on the US administration after its decision to cut $200 million in American financial aid to the Palestinians.

Abbas and the PA leadership are again behaving like spoiled, angry children whose candy has been taken away from them, hurling abuse at the Trump administration. Recall that earlier this year, Abbas called US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman a "son of a dog."

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?

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Nearly $1 million: What aid funds handed to the Abbas regime have done for savages who kill Jews - by Arnold Roth

...the incentive scheme for more terror is once again openly included in the PA budget. They don't care about being criticized. They care about Palestinian Arab public opinion. And their voters want more incentives for terror, not less. Which surely means more terror ahead, not less.

The only portrait we want to show in this post is this
 one of our daughter, Malki. She was 15 years old
when these barbarians carried out their evil plot.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
24 August '18..

Yesterday, we published a post ["23-Aug-18: New data: How the terrorists who bombed the Sbarro pizzeria fared financially"] focusing on the sums of money that, according to computations done by the fine team at Palestinian Media Watch (for whose input we are very grateful), have funded the lifestyles of the Sbarro bombing gang and, where relevant, their heirs.

Those Sbarro-related payments are rapidly approaching a million dollars and increase monthly. The Palestinian Authority, which pays out the cash,, is perpetually insolvent.

The incentive value of sums like those paid out, and continuing to be paid month after month, in encouraging ever more Arab-on-Israeli terror is clear.

There's also much to be learned from knowing more about those Hamas terrorists - what they did, what's become of them. Even people relatively well-informed about Israel's experience at the hands of Palestinian Arab terrorists are unaware of much of the detail below.

We prepared these brief profiles. The terrorists named below - with the exception of the one who appears at the bottom of the list - were all involved in the 2001 Battle of the Sbarro Pizzeria (their names are listed alphabetically by surname).

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An affront to Australian values: A welcome reconsideration of aid to the Palestinian Arabs - by Arnold Roth

...Much like the furious reaction of a drug addict when refused further access to narcotics, the official responses of the Palestinian Arabs have not been slow to come.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
04 July '18..

A front page story ["Australia freezes aid to Palestinian Authority | Our tax won't 'Pay to Slay'"] in the July 6, 2018 edition of the Australian Jewish News (we subscribe to the electronic edition) deals with a welcome move to reconsider foreign aid funding of the Abbas PLO/Fatah regime.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said this past Monday, according to Haaretz, that she directed Australia's funding support to be stopped after she wrote to the Palestinian Authority in late May seeking assurance that Australian funding was not being misspent. "I am confident that previous Australian funding to the PA through the World Bank has been used as intended. However, I am concerned that in providing funds for this aspect of the PA's operations there is an opportunity for it to use its own budget to (fund) activities that Australia would never support," Bishop said in a statement. "Any assistance provided by the Palestine Liberation Organization to those convicted of politically motivated violence is an affront to Australian values and undermines the prospect," Bishop added. ["Australia Ends Direct Aid to Palestinian Authority Amid Fears Money Is Going to Terrorists", July 2, 2018]

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The Terrorism Jobs Program: Pampering the Palestinians Must End - by Nonie Darwish

...Palestinians today complain that the world no longer cares, and that is very likely true. The world has other, more urgent problems to worry about -- such as being invaded or by their neighbors or the future to the region of nuclear proliferation. It is high time for the world to demand that Palestinians be absorbed into the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), as are all other refugees, and assimilated wherever they may be, to end this fraudulent "right of return" saga. The longer financial aid and the pampering of Palestinians continue as an "insurance policy" ostensibly to prevent terrorism, the longer the suffering, dependence, terror and conflict will go on. It is time for Palestinians to learn that threatening terror is not a way to earn a living.

Nonie Darwish..
Gatestone Institute..
16 January '18..

A British woman, Kay Wilson, apparently realized that when a Palestinian terrorist "plunged a knife into her chest", left her for dead and then murdered her friend, it was British taxpayers who had paid for it.

"Is the UK funding the terrorists who tried to murder me?", she asked.

Yes, it is. "According to data collected by Israel's Defense Ministry, the PA spent a total of 1.237 billion shekels ($358 million), or about 7% of the PA's total annual budget, on terrorist stipends last year."

International payments to Palestinians that are used to pay terrorists in jail, as well as their families, serve both as a "reward for bad behavior" and also as a powerful incentive for youths to become terrorists.

They are a jobs program.

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A baseless liberal myth trying to create a Gaza version of the Marshall Plan - by Prof. Efraim Inbar

...A Gaza version of the Marshall Plan is a bad and harmful idea. Israel needs to persist with its carrot-and-stick policy, which has been substantially successful over the years, even if finding the perfect balance in this fragile equation is complicated and fraught with uncertainty.

Prof. Efraim Inbar..
Israel Hayom..
21 November '17..
Link: http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/a-baseless-liberal-myth/

Voices from inside the IDF and out are advising Israel to spearhead a broad international aid plan for the Gaza Strip. According to the plan's initiators, its purpose would be to prevent economic deterioration that could spark unrest and bring to power forces even more radical than Hamas. Improving the economy in Gaza, supporters of the plan hope, would also reduce motivation for terrorism against Israel.

The logic behind this aid plan is flawed for several reasons:

1. The assumption that poverty creates terrorism is a factually baseless liberal myth. There is no correlation between standard of living and political violence and terror. Poor countries do not suffer from terrorism any more than richer countries. Take India, for example. The Palestinians launched their campaign of terror in 2000, when their economy was at its peak.

2. Believing that economic prosperity among Gazans will temper the worldview of Hamas' military wing is unforgivably naive. Radical ideology and religious zealotry will not be affected by the wealth of unarmed Gazans. In dictatorial regimes such as the one in Gaza, whoever controls the weapons makes the decisions. Middle Eastern tyrants do not hesitate to shoot their political rivals.

3. Large-scale economic aid to Gaza means supporting a bitter enemy determined to destroy the Jewish state. Did the West ever consider economic help for the people living under Islamic State's so-called caliphate in an attempt to curb increasing radicalization? Israel does not need to concern itself with the viability of Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Radical Islam can be defeated only when enough Muslims realize the extremist version of their religion is the main source of their suffering, not their well-being.

Does "international human rights law" demand that people who murder Jews be paid a lifetime salary? - by Elder of Ziyon

...Out of all the egregious, immoral actions of "human rights" groups, this is the most shocking. Answers must be demanded from not only PCHR but also from every one of its funders. And the answers must not be of the "let's sweep it under the rug" type where PCHR makes a half-hearted statement that gets eagerly swallowed by these governments and non-government funders so they can continue to throw money - often taxpayer money - to a "human rights" group that has just proven that it is the antithesis of human rights. As long as you consider Jews to be human, that is.

Elder of Ziyon..
07 August '17..

PCHR, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, held a workshop last month entitled “Consequences of Former Prisoners’ Salary Suspension on their Economic and Social Rights.”

The conference centered on some 277 former prisoners in Gaza, all of them Hamas as far as I can tell, who lost their permanent salaries from the Palestinian Authority. But the arguments that PCHR is putting forth in defending them are the same arguments that they would use to defend paying the thousands of prisoners and former prisoners, including murderers, who take up a significant part of the PA budget.

The workshop was opened by Dr. Fadel Muzeini, a researcher at PCHR’s Economic and Social Rights Unit. Muzeini emphasized that PCHR has paid special attention to prisoners and former prisoners over their years of work and always supported their just causes. He also stressed that the Palestinian Authority’s decision to suspend the salaries of former prisoners is unfair and in violation of former prisoners and their families’ right to a decent life. He added the decision is unconstitutional and explicitly violates the Basic Law and Prisoners and Former Prisoners Law No. 19/2004 and its amendments, which guarantee former prisoners’ rights to be monthly paid a salary according to a specific system.

Lawyer Raji Sourani, PCHR’s Director, reviewed PCHR’s position on the suspension of former prisoners’ salaries. He said that the decision of suspending former prisoners’ salaries was shocking to the prisoners, their families and all Palestinians as it is illegal, immoral, and violates the Basic Law and the international human rights law. Sourani also demanded the Palestinian Authority to apologize for this unjust decision, end this abnormal situation and regularly re-pay the former prisoners’ salaries, considering all of this as a lawful right for the prisoners and former prisoners.

The director of a lavishly funded human rights NGO says that "international human rights law" demands that people who murder Jews must be paid a lifetime salary for their efforts.

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Britain: End the foreign aid madness funding Palestinian schools named for terrorists

...‘This is how it works,’ said Anwar Abu Quak, an English teacher in Ramallah. ‘They apply for funds, they get funds and they claim they will remove things from our textbooks. Then the principals tell teachers to take it upon themselves to teach the right things. Why should we listen to the foreign donors? They are buying the politicians and civil servants with their money, not those of us teaching the kids.’

Ian Birrell..
The Mail on Sunday..
11 March '17..

Britain is pumping huge sums of foreign aid into Palestinian schools named after mass murderers and Islamist militants, which openly promote terrorism and encourage pupils to see child killers as role models.

A Mail on Sunday investigation has found 24 schools named after Palestinian terrorists and evidence of widespread encouragement of violence against Israel by teachers, with terrorists routinely held up as heroes for schoolchildren.

Pictures of ‘martyrs’ are posted on school walls, revolutionary slogans and symbols are painted on premises used by youngsters, sports events are named after teenage terrorists and children are encouraged to act out shooting Israeli soldiers in plays.

In a sick classroom play children at the Al-Surra School surround a classmate dressed as an Israeli soldier to play out a mock 'execution'

Head teachers openly admit flouting attempts by British and European donors to control the curriculum at schools. They print overtly political study aids for pupils, some even denying the existence of Israel, and teachers boast of encouraging pupils to emulate teenage attackers killed in the most recent wave of terrorist attacks in the region.

One senior teacher from a prominent West Bank school, asked what he would say to a pupil threatening to attack Israelis, told this newspaper: ‘I would tell them go in the name of God.’

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In 2015 over 100,000 Palestinian Arab patients treated in Israel - Israelis pay for their treatment

...Israel gets next to no media attention for the help it gives to those who want to destroy it, but if Israel would insist on full payment, you can be sure that sob stories will be published by Reuters about how heartless Israelis are for refusing to allow unlimited Palestinian patients.

Elder of Ziyon..
04 March '17..

Makor Rishon has a recent article that describes the statistics of Palestinian medical patients in Israel. (I found the statistics online as well from a May 2016 article in Mako.)

In 2015, Israeli hospitals treated over 97,000 Arabs from the West Bank (allowing over 100,000 people to accompany them). In addition, over 31,787 Gaza patients and escorts arrived in 2015.

At any given time there are 60-70 Gazans receiving care at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv alone.

Only 10% of the cost to care for these patients comes from the Palestinian Authority. The rest is paid for by the Israeli taxpayer.

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What's the exchange rate for American dollars into Palestinian Arab terror? - by Arnold Roth

...The Obama administration (as distinct from the Congress) paid no noticeable attention to the impact of its Palestinian Arab foreign aid on people's lives and deaths during its two terms. Now there's a new regime in Washington. Will they do better? Will the Europeans? Much rides on the answers.

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
29 January '17..

The underhanded attempt, in the waning hours of the Obama administration, to ship $221 million to Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority, is now - surprisingly - on ice.

As Associated Press reported on January 23, 2017

Officials say the Obama administration in its waning hours defied Republican opposition and quietly released $221 million to the Palestinian Authority that GOP members of Congress had been blocking. A State Department official and several congressional aides said the outgoing administration formally notified Congress it would spend the money Friday morning. The official said former Secretary of State John Kerry had informed some lawmakers of the move shortly before he left the State Department for the last time Thursday.

Two days later, in a report jointly attributed to its Middle East analyst Avi Issacharoff and to AP, Times of Israel said the cash transfer had been stopped:

The Trump administration has informed the Palestinian Authority that it is freezing the transfer of $221 million which was quietly authorized by the Obama administration in its final hours on January 20, a senior Palestinian source has told The Times of Israel. US officials conveyed to PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah on Tuesday that the funds were not expected to be handed over in the immediate future, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. On Tuesday, the State Department said it was reviewing the last-minute decision by former secretary of state John Kerry to send the funds to the Palestinians despite objections to the transfer by congressional Republicans. The department said it would look at the payment and might make adjustments to ensure it comports with the Trump administration’s priorities... ["Palestinians say Obama’s last-minute $221 million payout frozen by Trump", Times of Israel, January 25, 2017]

To be clear, no one serious is saying the Palestinian Arabs don't need aid or shouldn't get it. (Without getting into the matter of their endemic and world-class corruption, anyone can see they have huge needs, massively wasted resources and a kleptocratic and vastly inadequate leadership. They ought to be getting help.) The problem is that foreign aid to the Palestinian Arab gets turned by them into something lethal and hideous.

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5 Things You Need to Know About World Vision - by Dexter Van Zile

...tolerating a certain amount of diversion of charitable donations is part of the business World Vision is in. In an important 1994 essay about humanitarian aid, Alex de Waal introduces the word “fieldcraft” to describe how officials from humanitarian organizations make “compromises with the authorities for the greater good.” Field officers use their discretion to tolerate “a certain degree of … corruption and extortion,” he writes. The allegations against Halabi, however, go far beyond “fieldcraft.” The allegations indicate he wasn't shipping stuff to Hamas so he could keep helping kids, he was helping kids as a pretext to get resources to Hamas.

Dexter Van Zile..
CAMERA Middle East Issues..
18 August '16..

World Vision, a Christian organization devoted to promoting child welfare throughout the world, is facing a scandal that threatens its credibility in a profound way. One of its employees, Mohammed El-Halabi, stands accused of stealing charitable donations and handing them over to Hamas, a terrorist organization.

On August 4, 2016, the Israel government announced that it was charging Halabi with diverting funds donated for the benefit of children to Hamas, which used the money to purchase weapons and to construct attack tunnels into Israel.

According to Shin Bet, Halabi confessed to diverting money and in-kind contributions (such as food packets) to Hamas fighters, some of whom were included on World Vision's payroll. Children of Hamas members were, according to Israeli officials, falsely put on lists of injured children so that their families would qualify for World Vision donations. Halabi reportedly even confessed to using his position as a World Vision employee to spy out and mark out egress points for Hamas terror tunnels into Israel.

The allegations against World Vision's man in the Gaza Strip are lethal to the organization's credibility. World Vision collects money through a child-sponsorship program in which donors give money to assist and benefit individual children and here is Halabi allegedly confessing to turning these donations into some sort of terrorist-sponsorship program.

What makes the accusation so bothersome is that World Vision has a well-documented tendency to portray Israel as singularly responsible for the suffering of children in the Gaza Strip (and for the Arab-Israeli conflict) while giving Hamas a pass.

Here are a five things that people need to know about World Vision.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. 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.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Your Tax Dollars Fund Palestinian Terror? Willful Blindness Helps. - by David Feith

...As long as Palestinian political culture remains unchanged—as long as Palestine’s liberal friends excuse its every illiberal offense—expect the glorification of terrorism to continue. This is a political scandal far greater than any single charity funneling funds to Hamas.

David Feith..
Wall St. Journal..
11 August '16..
Link: http://www.wsj.com/articles/your-tax-dollars-fund-palestinian-terror-1470957628

With an indictment unsealed last week, Israeli investigators have sounded an alarm over the illicit use of global aid money to fund Palestinian terrorism. Prosecutors in the city of Beersheba allege that Mohammed El-Halabi, Gaza Strip director of the California-based charity World Vision, transferred tens of millions of dollars to Hamas to buy weapons and build underground attack tunnels. Although World Vision denies fault, the governments of Australia and Germany have halted donations pending investigations.

This revelation should spur a broader reassessment of American aid to the Palestinian government. For two decades the Palestinian government has used U.S. and other foreign taxpayers’ money to pay generous rewards to the families of terrorists. The deadlier the crime, the larger the prize, up to about $3,100 a month, or several times the average salary of a worker in Palestine’s non-terrorist economy.

Recall that 13-year-old Hallel Yaffa Ariel was murdered in her bed by a knife-wielding Palestinian in June. She was a dual Israeli-American citizen, making her the 11th American killed by Palestinians since 2014. Other victims include 18-year-old Ezra Schwartz, a student from Sharon, Mass., and 28-year-old Taylor Force, a West Point graduate and two-tour U.S. Army veteran from Lubbock, Texas. The families of the killers now receive regular payments from Palestinian leaders—funded partly by U.S. taxpayers.

Who actually cares that foreign aid is diverted from needy Gazans to terror? - by Arnold Roth

"...Hamas stole this money and passed it to its military wing to build bases, provide salary bonuses and dig the tunnels of death that have brought destruction upon you and the Gaza Strip... Hamas is burying you and your hope of living a normal life....

A Hamas/Gaza tunnel under construction,
October 2013 [Image Source]

Arnold/Frimet Roth..
This Ongoing War..
14 August '16..

Audit firms, governments and Christian aid groups are sorting out their post-exposé strategies following the arrests of several Palestinian Arabs on charges of illegally and surreptitiously siphoning vast sums into Palestinian Arab terror.

But strangely those who are most identified with doing humanitarian good for the Palestinian Arabs don't appear to be in the front lines of those expressing deep concern at the harm such diversions have caused. And that's an understatement.

One of the most visible signs of where the cash goes (that's present tense - no one believes the scandal has been stopped) is the tunnels of Gaza. The latest news from there - just this month and just from Palestinian Arab sources indicates this vast engineering project is not going smoothly:

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. 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.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Foreign Donors, Aid Diversion and Hamas - by Elliott Abrams

...The only way to solve this problem is for donors to withhold funding unless and until the independence of their programs can be assured. Yes, the people of Gaza would suffer, but they would know why: because Hamas is more interested in its own terrorist actions than in the welfare of Gazans. Aid donors have turned a blind eye for far too long.

Elliott Abrams..
Pressure Points..
10 August '16..
Link: http://blogs.cfr.org/abrams/2016/08/10/foreign-aid-for-hamas/

I’ve written about a half dozen times in the past about UNRWA, the UN agency that deals with Palestinians: here in 2014 and here in 2015, for example. Simply put, UNRWA has long had employees who were sympathetic to Hamas, and who engaged in acts of anti-Semitism, but it has overlooked their actions and indeed often protected them. That appears to be the culture of the place.

In the last week we’ve learned something new: that employees of other leading charitable and development agencies like World Vision and the UN Development Program (UNDP) may also be diverting funds to Hamas. Israel has detained employees of both World Vision and UNDP. Australia has frozen contributions to World Vision’s Gaza programs until the entire matter can be sorted out, and the German offices of World Vision have frozen their own programs in Gaza.

Here’s the UNDP story:

Israel said Tuesday it had charged a United Nations staffer with helping the Islamist movement Hamas, the second indictment involving aid workers in Gaza in a week. Engineer Waheed Borsh, who has worked for the UN Development Programme (UNDP) since 2003, was arrested on July 16 and charged in a civilian court in Israel on Tuesday, a government statement said. The UNDP said it was “greatly concerned” by the allegations while Hamas, which has run the Gaza Strip since 2007, denied any involvement. The government said 38-year-old Borsh, from Jabaliya in northern Gaza, had been recruited by “a senior member of the Hamas terrorist organisation to redirect his work for UNDP to serve Hamas’s military interests”. It said he had confessed to a number of accusations, including diverting rubble from a UNDP project in the coastal strip to a Hamas operation to build a jetty for its naval force. He is also alleged to have last year persuaded UNDP managers to focus home rebuilding efforts in areas where Hamas members lived, after pressure from the group.

And here is the World Vision story:

The Gaza head of the U.S.-based humanitarian aid organization World Vision funneled as much as $7 million a year over the past 10 years to Hamas’s terror activities, Israel’s domestic security agency said Thursday. The Shin Bet said the aid group’s Gaza director, Mohammed el-Halabi, is an active figure in Hamas’s military wing. He was indicted by Israeli authorities Thursday, accused of diverting some 60 percent of World Vision’s annual budget for Gaza to Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that rules the coastal enclave. He was charged with transferring money and working with a terror group. Hamas is viewed as a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union. Israel has fought three wars with Hamas since 2009. In addition to the $7 million a year in funds transferred to Hamas coffers, Shin Bet said, Halabi also handed over to Hamas piles of cash — an additional $1.5 million a year. The Israelis also said he gave Hamas $800,000 taken from a United Kingdom donation to help build a Hamas military base. The money was designated for civilian projects in the Gaza Strip, Israeli authorities said.

The accused are innocent until proved guilty, although they are said to have confessed. What we can now see clearly is that none of these organizations–UNDP, World Vision, or UNRWA–was ever going to find the facts, fire people, clean out the Hamas agents, and solve these problems. That will require the intervention of donors, and those steps in Germany and Australia are remarkable only in that they have not been followed universally. “Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) called the allegations ‘deeply troubling’ and said in a statement that it was ‘urgently seeking more information from World Vision and the Israeli authorities. ‘We are suspending the provision of further funding to World Vision for programs in the Palestinian Territories until the investigation is complete,’ it said.” Quite right–but what about all the other donors?

Terrorist Aid Hijacking: Learning from the World Vision Case

..."World Vision's failures in Gaza highlight the problems of a multi-billion dollar NGO industry that remains largely unregulated and unexamined. While World Vision is currently the focus of attention following the arrest of El-Halabi and the scale of the allegations, this should be a cautionary moment for many other international aid organizations that have similar operations in Gaza, such as Oxfam, Care, Christian Aid, and UNRWA - the United Nations Relief and Works Agency."

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA..









NGO Monitor August 7, 2016
Terrorist Aid Hijacking and NGO Oversight Failure: Learning from the World Vision Case

On August 4, 2016, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) revealed that Mohammed El-Halabi, manager of the Gaza operations of the international humanitarian NGO World Vision, funneled 60% of the World Vision Gaza budget to the terrorist group Hamas. The Israeli indictment and media reported that these funds were used in the construction of Hamas tunnels, military installations, and other terrorist activities.

In response, Prof. Gerald Steinberg, President of NGO Monitor noted, "To avoid enabling murderous Hamas attacks, and compounding the suffering of people in Gaza, aid groups need to apply surveillance and intelligence technologies, particularly regarding employees and their activities."

NGO Monitor identified World Vision as susceptible to aid diversion in its 2015 book, Filling in the Blanks, concluding that there is "little doubt as to World Vision's willingness to negotiate and coordinate with armed groups. This raises questions as to whether the group would prevent components of its aid from being misappropriated by terrorist organizations, if it felt that taking a stand would jeopardize the organization's ability to continue its operations in a given area."

Channeling donor funds to reward and compensate acts of terror - by Amb. Alan Baker

...While ordinary prisoners, such as car thieves do not receive a salary, every person committing acts of terror are on the PA payroll. The salary goes directly to the terrorist or the terrorist’s family, and prisoners receive salary from the day of arrest.8 More than 5,500 Palestinian prisoners serving time for terror-related offenses are recipients. This situation, in effect, constitutes a manipulation of international funding for the PA, through channeling donor funds to reward and compensate acts of terror and as such to encourage continued terror, in clear contravention of national and international norms and obligations.

Amb. Alan Baker..
jcpa.org..
Vol. 16, No. 10..
14 July '16..

There has recently been considerable media coverage of the transfer of donor funding from foreign governments (including the United States, the UK, Denmark and other EU countries) to official Palestinian governing bodies, and its use for salaries and other benefits to Palestinians serving prison sentences for acts of terror.

Clearly, the channeling of donor funding to compensate terrorists and thereby to encourage further terror raises serious legal and moral questions, both for the governments contributing the funds, but also in the context of international law and practice.

Current Palestinian Practice

According to the Guardian and Daily Mail newspapers:

About 6 percent of the Palestinian budget is diverted to prisoner salaries. All this money comes from so-called ‘donor countries’ such as the United States, Great Britain, Norway, and Denmark.”2 (The Guardian)

British aid money is helping to pay ‘salaries’ to Palestinian prisoners – some of them convicted terrorists – serving time in Israeli jails, according to a report.

The Palestinian Authority is paying them up to £1,957 a month – more than the average salary of a UK worker.

The Department for International Development spends around £80million a year in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, of which around £30million goes to the general budget, which funds prisoners’ allowances.”3 (Daily Mail)

Britain gives £72 million a year to Palestine, more than one-third of which goes straight to the PA. It openly admits supporting terrorists whom it hails as heroes for fighting illegal occupation, awarding lifetime payments that rise depending on time spent in jail and the seriousness of crimes.

One Hamas master bomber has reportedly been given more than £100,000. Other ‘salaries’ go to the families of suicide bombers and even teenagers involved in the latest upsurge of deadly attacks on Israel.”4 (Daily Mail)

In his recent testimony to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on July 6, 2016, Yigal Carmon, President and Founder, of the “Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI),” provided detailed statistics on the extent of the Palestinian payments to terrorist prisoners. In his testimony, he stated:

This financial support for prisoners is anchored in a series of laws and government decrees, chiefly Laws No. 14 and No. 19 of 2004, and Law No. 1 of 2013. The prisoners are described as ‘a fighting sector and an integral part of the weave of Arab Palestinian society’ and it is stated that ‘the financial rights of the prisoner and his family’ must be assured.

According to the laws, the PA must provide prisoners with a monthly allowance during their incarceration and salaries or jobs upon their release. They are also entitled to exemptions from payments for education, health care, and professional training. Their years of imprisonment are calculated as years of seniority of service in PA institutions. It should be noted that whoever was imprisoned for five years or more is entitled to a job in a PA institution. Thus, the PA gives priority in job placement to people who were involved in terrorist activity.5

Official legislation of the Palestinian Authority from 2010 places all Palestinians and Israeli Arabs imprisoned in Israel for terror crimes on the PA payroll to receive a monthly salary from the PA.6 Earlier legislation defines “prisoners” benefiting from this requirement, as “Anyone imprisoned in the occupation’s prisons as a result of his participation in the struggle against the occupation.”7

While ordinary prisoners, such as car thieves do not receive a salary, every person committing acts of terror are on the PA payroll. The salary goes directly to the terrorist or the terrorist’s family, and prisoners receive salary from the day of arrest.8 More than 5,500 Palestinian prisoners serving time for terror-related offenses are recipients.

This situation, in effect, constitutes a manipulation of international funding for the PA, through channeling donor funds to reward and compensate acts of terror and as such to encourage continued terror, in clear contravention of national and international norms and obligations.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. 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.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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