To promote Middle East peace, cut aid to Palestinians

[Solomon2]

Trump is right to feel suckered: To promote Middle East peace, cut aid to Palestinians
BY SANDER GERBER AND YOSSI KUPERWASSER, OPINION CONTRIBUTORS — 01/19/18 10:30 AM EST 145
THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL

© Getty Images

In one of his forthright tweets, dated Jan. 2, President Trump declared: “It’s not only Pakistan that we pay billions of dollars to for nothing ... we pay the Palestinians HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect. … With the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?”

Much of the Washington foreign policy establishment scoffed at this blunt expression of frustration at the poor returns the United States receives on certain foreign aid investments. Trump’s opinion, in their view, is unsophisticated and parochial.

But it is actually the Washington establishment that is being parochial: foreign aid isn’t an entitlement, or a gift, or charity. It is supposed to serve the national interest, and we are supposed to be able to identify something tangible we receive in return for providing it. Trump is right to ask whether U.S. aid to the Palestinians serves its intended purpose — promoting peace with Israel — and he is right to feel suckered.

What has the Palestinian Authority done with the more than $5 billion the United States has provided since the mid-1990s? Why is Palestinian state-building nonexistent? Why are the United States Agency for International Development, the United Nations, its United Nations Relief and Works Agency and other international bureaucracies acting as the de facto government of the West Bank and Gaza?

Many advocates of U.S. aid to the Palestinians believe that we are supporting Palestinian employment and civil society programs that give hope and purpose to the poor, disincentivizing them from committing the knifings, car rammings, suicide bombings and shootings that have been mainstays of Palestinian behavior toward Israelis.

But under the Palestinian Authority, by far the most successful and widespread economic support program has been the so-called “pay for slay” program: a detailed, legally codified system of payments to Palestinian terrorists and their families. The “pay for slay” bureaucracy benefits around 3 percent of the Palestinian population — but the payments amount to over 7 percent, or $350 million in 2017, of the Palestinian Authority budget.

Palestinians who have carried out terror attacks or helped terrorists are rewarded with monetary benefits, job placement, job training and health care. These are rewards enshrined in Palestinian Authority laws, which define those who carry out terrorist attacks as “the fighting sector of society” and specifically designate the payments to them as “salaries” or “compensation,” as opposed to welfare. The payments are not handouts — they are compensation for services rendered.

Unlike welfare programs, there is no means of testing for “pay to slay” recipients. The statutory purpose is to ensure that purveyors of violence and their families are rewarded with a good life as a gesture of appreciation and obligation for their willingness to carry out terrorist attacks.

The Prisoners’ Institution and the Institution for the Care of Martyrs support 36,000 families — at least 150,000 people — among a population of 4.5 million. To grasp the magnitude of this, imagine if 12 million to 14 million Americans received state-mandated compensation for violence. Viewed from another angle, more than 1 in 30 people who come in contact with a local Palestinian are receiving financial compensation for having participated in, or supported, violence against Israel.

The Palestinian Authority claims these rewards for violence are a form of welfare to support the downtrodden left without breadwinners. But a welfare system exists and has a budget of $220 million for 120,000 families, which is 40 percent less than the “pay to slay” budget, for 300 percent more people. The average family of an imprisoned terrorist receives more than five times the benefits of the average welfare recipient.

It is well known and extensively documented that Palestinian Authority and Fatah officials incite violence through state-run media and state supported clerics, and glorify terrorists through the naming of roads, schools and community centers in their “blessed” memory.

Now under pressure from the Trump administration to stop the “pay to slay” program, the Palestinian Authority says it won’t be bought by America. But the Palestinian population certainly could use America’s aid; per capita annual income is only $3,200, according to USAID, and unemployment rates are high. The best way the United States can support the Palestinian people is to require the Palestinian Authority, as a condition of receiving aid, to behave like a government that understands employment programs should not incentivize their citizens to become terrorists.

President Trump’s instincts are right, and he is right to feel suckered. U.S. aid to the Palestinians hasn’t gotten us much — and certainly not appreciation or respect. In fact, today it seems clear that foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority is part of the problem and a significant reason why peace is elusive.

President Trump should encourage the Senate to pass the Taylor Force Act, which reduces U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority because of its payments to terrorists. And he should make the shuttering of the Palestinian Authority prisoners and martyrs programs a condition for convening any peace talks.

Sander Gerber is CEO of Hudson Bay Capital, a fellow at the Jerusalem Center of Public Affairs, and a member of the Council of Foreign Relations. He served as a member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committeeboard of directors (2004-2016) and as vice chairman of the Wilson Center (2008-2016).

Brig. Gen. (Res.) Yossi Kuperwasser is director of the Project on Regional Middle East Developments at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He formerly was director general of the Israel Ministry of Strategic Affairs and head of the Research Division of IDF Military Intelligence.

 

[Solomon2]

...the Palestinian Authority says it won’t be bought by America. But the Palestinian population certainly could use America’s aid; per capita annual income is only $3,200, according to USAID -

Note: for comparison, by the same USAID measure Pakistan's per capital income is $1,510.

 

[Hamza913]

What about Israel? Those guys leech off the US like no tomorrow.

 

[Taygibay]

Trump is right to feel suckered:
To promote Middle East peace,
cut military aid to Palestinians ...
everyone else.​

Peace out, Tay.

 

[django]

Trump is right to feel suckered: To promote Middle East peace, cut aid to Palestinians
BY SANDER GERBER AND YOSSI KUPERWASSER, OPINION CONTRIBUTORS — 01/19/18 10:30 AM EST 145
THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL

© Getty Images

In one of his forthright tweets, dated Jan. 2, President Trump declared: “It’s not only Pakistan that we pay billions of dollars to for nothing ... we pay the Palestinians HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect. … With the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?”

Much of the Washington foreign policy establishment scoffed at this blunt expression of frustration at the poor returns the United States receives on certain foreign aid investments. Trump’s opinion, in their view, is unsophisticated and parochial.

But it is actually the Washington establishment that is being parochial: foreign aid isn’t an entitlement, or a gift, or charity. It is supposed to serve the national interest, and we are supposed to be able to identify something tangible we receive in return for providing it. Trump is right to ask whether U.S. aid to the Palestinians serves its intended purpose — promoting peace with Israel — and he is right to feel suckered.

What has the Palestinian Authority done with the more than $5 billion the United States has provided since the mid-1990s? Why is Palestinian state-building nonexistent? Why are the United States Agency for International Development, the United Nations, its United Nations Relief and Works Agency and other international bureaucracies acting as the de facto government of the West Bank and Gaza?

Many advocates of U.S. aid to the Palestinians believe that we are supporting Palestinian employment and civil society programs that give hope and purpose to the poor, disincentivizing them from committing the knifings, car rammings, suicide bombings and shootings that have been mainstays of Palestinian behavior toward Israelis.

But under the Palestinian Authority, by far the most successful and widespread economic support program has been the so-called “pay for slay” program: a detailed, legally codified system of payments to Palestinian terrorists and their families. The “pay for slay” bureaucracy benefits around 3 percent of the Palestinian population — but the payments amount to over 7 percent, or $350 million in 2017, of the Palestinian Authority budget.

Palestinians who have carried out terror attacks or helped terrorists are rewarded with monetary benefits, job placement, job training and health care. These are rewards enshrined in Palestinian Authority laws, which define those who carry out terrorist attacks as “the fighting sector of society” and specifically designate the payments to them as “salaries” or “compensation,” as opposed to welfare. The payments are not handouts — they are compensation for services rendered.

Unlike welfare programs, there is no means of testing for “pay to slay” recipients. The statutory purpose is to ensure that purveyors of violence and their families are rewarded with a good life as a gesture of appreciation and obligation for their willingness to carry out terrorist attacks.

The Prisoners’ Institution and the Institution for the Care of Martyrs support 36,000 families — at least 150,000 people — among a population of 4.5 million. To grasp the magnitude of this, imagine if 12 million to 14 million Americans received state-mandated compensation for violence. Viewed from another angle, more than 1 in 30 people who come in contact with a local Palestinian are receiving financial compensation for having participated in, or supported, violence against Israel.

The Palestinian Authority claims these rewards for violence are a form of welfare to support the downtrodden left without breadwinners. But a welfare system exists and has a budget of $220 million for 120,000 families, which is 40 percent less than the “pay to slay” budget, for 300 percent more people. The average family of an imprisoned terrorist receives more than five times the benefits of the average welfare recipient.

It is well known and extensively documented that Palestinian Authority and Fatah officials incite violence through state-run media and state supported clerics, and glorify terrorists through the naming of roads, schools and community centers in their “blessed” memory.

Now under pressure from the Trump administration to stop the “pay to slay” program, the Palestinian Authority says it won’t be bought by America. But the Palestinian population certainly could use America’s aid; per capita annual income is only $3,200, according to USAID, and unemployment rates are high. The best way the United States can support the Palestinian people is to require the Palestinian Authority, as a condition of receiving aid, to behave like a government that understands employment programs should not incentivize their citizens to become terrorists.

President Trump’s instincts are right, and he is right to feel suckered. U.S. aid to the Palestinians hasn’t gotten us much — and certainly not appreciation or respect. In fact, today it seems clear that foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority is part of the problem and a significant reason why peace is elusive.

President Trump should encourage the Senate to pass the Taylor Force Act, which reduces U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority because of its payments to terrorists. And he should make the shuttering of the Palestinian Authority prisoners and martyrs programs a condition for convening any peace talks.

Sander Gerber is CEO of Hudson Bay Capital, a fellow at the Jerusalem Center of Public Affairs, and a member of the Council of Foreign Relations. He served as a member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committeeboard of directors (2004-2016) and as vice chairman of the Wilson Center (2008-2016).

Brig. Gen. (Res.) Yossi Kuperwasser is director of the Project on Regional Middle East Developments at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He formerly was director general of the Israel Ministry of Strategic Affairs and head of the Research Division of IDF Military Intelligence.

Solomon, Solomon,,,Solomon the funny or rather sad thing is a large number of the Palestinian population is actually descended from actual Jews who converted to Islam centuries ago who are being displaced by settlers who have NO ancestral link with this holy land, their only link is that some of their ancient forefathers who were possibly from somewhere near Armenia converted to Judaism for political reasons, now their descendants a lot of whom are atheists seem to have more rights than the actual sons of Israel "cough" "cough" a large chunk of the Palestinian population.Kudos Solomon.

 

[Dalit]

LOL Yanks digging their own grave by being a poodle of the Zionists. Zionist slaves is what these redneck Yanks are.

 

[Antaréss]

Shipping back the Semitic-wannabes is easier.

 

[Cthulhu]

Ain't these Israeli a-holes something!?

 

[Solomon2]

Ain't these Israeli a-holes something!?

Trump Dropped a Truth Bomb on the Middle East
Daniel Krygier | 19/01/2018

Time has come to tell the PLO that the game is up, they lost and are in no position to demand anything from anyone. Accepting defeat could be the best thing for the Arabs of the PA

The “Tsar Bomba,” detonated in 1961 (Flickr images)

Throughout history, nations and people knew when they were winning and when they were losing. Despite suffering spectacular failures and chronic defeat, Arab leaders in general, and the PLO leadership in particular, pretend as if they are the victors setting demands.

Can you imagine Hitler during the dying days of his Nazi empire, issuing threats and demands to the Allied victors from his Berlin bunker? Would the defeated Napoleon issue threatening demands to the victorious British Duke of Wellington in Waterloo? Of course not. Even fanatics like Hitler knew when the game was over.

Israel’s Muslim Arab enemies and their allies stand out as the only aggressors in human history that become more aggressive and threatening the more they lose.

After failing to prevent Israel’s rebirth in 1948, the Arabs and their allies have spent the past 70 years trying to destroy the Jewish state through military means, terrorism, boycotts, political propaganda, historical revisionism, and legal warfare through the UN and other international organizations. All attempts have failed. While facing many unresolved challenges, Israel thrives like never before.

Israel’s legendary Foreign Minister Abba Eban eloquently put this anomaly in perspective after Israel’s victory over the Arab states in the Six Day War in 1967:

“I think that this is the first war in history that on the morrow the victors sued for peace and the vanquished called for unconditional surrender.”

The US was not popular in post-1945 Japan. However, imperial Japan, which was immensely more powerful than the Arabs were, knew when the game was up and realized that it was in no position to demand anything from the victorious Americans.

For many years, Mahmoud Abbas was considered the “moderate” voice of PLO and a counterweight to the flamboyant and combative leader Yasser Arafat. After Arafat’s death, some Israeli and many Western pundits argued that with Abbas as the new PLO head, peace was just around the corner. For over a decade, Abbas has been the darling of the international Left. Abbas has mastered this double game with great skill in order to keep up the international pressure on Israel. When addressing his international audience, Abbas used carefully worded but false words of conciliation and “peace” with Israel. When addressing his own people, Abbas systematically revealed his opposition to Israel’s existence within any borders. In reality, “moderate” Abbas differed more in style than content from his predecessor Arafat.

Abbas (Abu Mazen) in Ramallah on January 14, 2018. (Photo by Flash90)

The PLO leader also cursed US President Trump for recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and cutting funds for UNWRA’s terrorism-sponsoring activities. In his Ramallah speech, which would have made Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels proud, PLO terrorist chief Abbas shamelessly erased 3000 years of Jewish national history in Jerusalem and Israel. For a Jew-hater who wrote a Ph.D. dissertation in Holocaust denial, it is only natural to deny the existence of Israel’s biblical past and the Jewish temples in Jerusalem.

The implications of unmasking Abbas are clear beyond any doubt. PLO never abandoned its goal of eradicating the Jewish state and rejects Jewish national independence within any borders. Israel and the international community have wasted 25 years and billions of dollars on a “peace process” with a corrupt and genocidal PLO leadership that refuses to let go of its fantasy of destroying Israel.

Since PLO, Hamas and UNWRA are obstacles to genuine peace between Arabs and Jews, they must be dismantled and replaced with a new Arab leadership committed to the welfare of its citizens and peace with Israel. PLO’s leadership are the pupils of Nazi, Communist and Islamist ideologies that are incompatible with genuine peace.

Time has come for Israel and the US to tell PLO that the game is up. With or without Abbas, PLO is a dead man walking and is in no position to demand anything from anyone. Only a mad megalomaniac despot living in fantasyland, issues threats to powerful nations like the US and Israel.

Just like peace in post-1945 Europe required the denazification of Germany, future Middle Eastern peace requires a denazification of the Arab world in general and the PLO-held territories in particular.

Humiliating defeat is never pleasant, especially for aggressors who got intoxicated with hubris and victories. Post-1945 Germany and Japan can attest to it. However, in the end, accepting defeat was the best thing that could have happened to the Germans and the Japanese. Their genocidal despotic regimes were replaced with genuine democracy and progress.

President Trump could become the Middle East’s nuclear Truth Bomb. Unlike the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan, the truth bombs in the Middle East do not kill anyone, but force the Muslim Arab world finally to come to terms with reality and the permanency of the reborn Jewish state and its rebuilt ancestral capital Jerusalem.

____________________

Daniel Kryger is a writer and a political analyst. He lives in Israel.

 

[SQ8]

The entire sentence is correct except the last bit- cut aid to Israel, cut off all support to it enforce a diplomatic and political blockade of Israel. Enforce total sanctions on all countries surrounding Israel if they interfere.

Give the Palestinians one 200mt atomic weapons since the Israelis already have theirs.


Let the Palestinians and Israelis bleed it out completely alone after that. They’re going to eventually find the best solution themselves.

Because the post itself stinks of zionist bigotry which is lower in value than fecal matter on a moral and ethical honesty scale.

 

[jewishm]

Solomon, Solomon,,,Solomon the funny or rather sad thing is a large number of the Palestinian population is actually descended from actual Jews who converted to Islam centuries ago who are being displaced by settlers who have NO ancestral link with this holy land, their only link is that some of their ancient forefathers who were possibly from somewhere near Armenia converted to Judaism for political reasons, now their descendants a lot of whom are atheists seem to have more rights than the actual sons of Israel "cough" "cough" a large chunk of the Palestinian population.Kudos Solomon.

only if it was true

 

[somebozo]

aid has kept the Palestinian conflict alive as it became a reward for the conflict.
Cut aid and the negotiating tables will be visited quickly!

 

[TurkeyForever]

Solomon, Solomon,,,Solomon the funny or rather sad thing is a large number of the Palestinian population is actually descended from actual Jews who converted to Islam centuries ago who are being displaced by settlers who have NO ancestral link with this holy land, their only link is that some of their ancient forefathers who were possibly from somewhere near Armenia converted to Judaism for political reasons, now their descendants a lot of whom are atheists seem to have more rights than the actual sons of Israel "cough" "cough" a large chunk of the Palestinian population.Kudos Solomon.

Yupp to be precise the village of Ashkenaz in Turkey thus the term "ashkenazi jews" and from there they moved up to Khazaria and from there to Europe.

https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/dna-sat-nav-uncovers-ancient-ashkenaz-1.569403

So in reality they are turkish, we must be good at trolling the world

Even Italians have their roots in Turkey 50% from Troy, just ask Markus.

 

[django]

Yupp to be precise the village of Ashkenaz in Turkey thus the term "ashkenazi jews" and from there they moved up to Khazaria and from there to Europe.

https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/dna-sat-nav-uncovers-ancient-ashkenaz-1.569403

So in reality they are turkish, we must be good at trolling the world

Even Italians have their roots in Turkey 50% from Troy, just ask Markus.

@jewishm