Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

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Palestine Near Economic Collapse?

The international welfare state of Arafatistan is near economic collapse according to this report in the Financial Times. It makes clear that in the absence of foriegn support, there is not much genuine economic activity in the nascent Palestinian nation.

Discussions - 23 Comments

I wonder where Israel would be without the 3 billion dollars that U.S. taxpayers give them each year.

Given free trade with the rest of the world, including the Arab world, Israel wouldn’t need a dime of U. S. subsidization.

Well then, why do we keep giving them all that money?

I find it hard to believe any of that $3 billion goes to anything but defense. If the US stopped sending the money the Israeli economy would suffer as they in turn had to up the percentage of their GDP spent on defense to maintain the status quo (they spend $9.45 billion which is 7.7% of their GDP; the US only spends 4.06%, but that is $518.1 billion). Although the Israeli economy would suffer, it would still be able to maintain itself, unlike the Palestinian economy which the article shows is completely dependent on foreign aid.

And they’re the only liberal democracy in the Middle East and the best ally we have in the region. Also, the War on Terror is probably a bad time to turn our backs on any of our allies, let alone an ally in the Middle East with one of the most efficient militaries and intelligence services in the world.

Israel uses it’s funding wisely while the palis don’t see alot of it..it never makes it down the chain.

Israel has a vibrant economic sector and that economy would be fairly substantial even without the $3 billion of economic aid from the United States. The difference between Israel and the Palestian Authority is most if not all of the economic aid to the Palestianian Authority ends up in the bank accounts of PA authorities. Arafat is rumored to have stashed billions of dollars in economic aid in his personal bank accounts.

Ken, I agree except it is no rumor. The man was a Billionare.

And all of this is America’s fault!!!

Those poor, poor democracy loving fighters for national autonomy. (shakes head at Bush’s American imperialism)

Perhaps the Palestinians should use the money we give them to buy Apache attack helicopters so they can assasinate Israeli leaders who believe that Palestine has no right to exist. That certainly would be a better use than just putting the money in "personal bank accounts."

...or perhaps since they seem to have an endless supply of willing young men looking for 72 virgins they might want to invest in ball bearings, nails, screws, explosives and suicide belts. Then send those suicide bombers into the pizzerias and malls of Israel to kill innocent mothers, fathers, and little children. Oh...wait, that’s what they’re already doing! Or...just maybe they might want to invest that foreign aid in their people and start creating a culture of hope that leads to economic opportunities and for a better way of life for Palestinians.

You know, we give a lot of money to very questionable governments, so I am not troubled at all that we give $3 bil to Israel. Heck, I say give them more and eliminate the money given to our enemies or to despotic regimes.

By the way, I suggest you look at the official Palestinian stance in regards to Israel’s existance and try to find a comparable official stance from the Israeli government in regards to Palestine’s existance.

Just a heads up for the history-lacking ...

Before Israel, the Jews in the area called themselves Palestinians. Moreover, there was a Palestinian Brigade or something like that in the British Army during WWII made up of Jews, of which many, if not most, were from the area now called Palestine and Israel.

It is not Israel who is to blame for the situation in Palestine. It is only the Palestinians themselves and the Arab states who use them.

Contrarian,

We give aid to over 100 countries. Why is it such a big problem to you that Israel is one of them?

I always said that if you could find a country in the Middle East that 1. had weapons of mass destruction 2. systematically oppressed its racial minorities 3. refused to respect the borders of its neighbors 4. violated various U.N. Resolutions it might be a good idea to invade them without provocation and install some new Quisling governments. Trouble is, we invaded the wrong country.

I was just going to come back and apologize for post 16, but I see out editors have removed it. Thank you. I’ve got the Contrarian hat on, not the total jerk hat. Sorry.

Comment 15 by Contrarian

I always said that if you could find a country in the Middle East that 1. had weapons of mass destruction 2. systematically oppressed its racial minorities 3. refused to respect the borders of its neighbors 4. violated various U.N. Resolutions it might be a good idea to invade them without provocation and install some new Quisling governments. Trouble is, we invaded the wrong country.

Let’s see what country fits into this profile.
1.)Iraq. We know this because he used them on Iran and the Kurds.

2.)Iraq. We’ve all seen the pictures, do I really need to elaborate.

3.)Iraq. Almost an entire decade of war with Iran followed by the invasion of Kuwait.

4.)Iraq. What was it like 17 UN Resolutions. Not only that but lets include firing on our planes almost daily.

Did I miss something? According to your formula Iraq seems to be the right country.

The weapons of mass destruction that I’m interested in are atomic. Only one country in the Middle East has those, and they have never signed any non-proliferation treaties and they have submitted to any inspections.

As for the Jewish people fighting alongside the British in WWII, it is useful to keep in mind that those same Jewish soliders engaged in terrorism one year after the war. They did so in order to get the British out of Palestine. The bombing of the King David Hotel was an awful act, and the man who ordered it eventually became Prime Minister of Israel.

Both the Israelis and the Palestians engage in awful acts today. Both sides have done shameful things. But Israel does not need our money today, and we cannot afford to antagonize the entire Islamic world by always siding with them in a knee-jerk manner.

Contrarian,

I see you are taking a page from JW’s book. You spout off a bunch of crap and then when you get thoroughly smacked down you try to act like something you clearly said meant something else. BTW, I will assume since you said that only one country in the Middle East has nuclear weapons you must be referring to Pakistan since they are the only country that has formally acknowledged this. Or did you just forget to do your homework before you spouted off. Wasn’t the first terrorist attack against Israel mere days after the countries formation.

I know the people at NLT usually let people express themselves and their opinions on this blog freely. What exactly did you say in comment 16 that warranted its removal? Given the direction of your comments could it be that it was very anti-Semitic? Quite frankly, if this is true, I am not even sure I care what you think.

In the original number 16 I lost my temper. An easy thing to do when facing off against people who are incapable of admiting that Bush and Israel make mistakes. Number 15, on the other hand, is a reductio ad absurdum, or, as you like to call it "a bunch of crap." Israel was founded by terrorists; that’s just a fact. Terrorism is a means of fighting asymetrical warfare. A war against terrorism is, in fact, a war for the status quo: a war for complete American hegemony.

I don’t recall anyone saying that Bush or Israel are perfect. Could you show me where this was mentioned? I will ask again though why it matters so much that we give aid to Israel when we give aid to over 100 countries?

It is pretty difficult to prove a negative. I have not read every post ever put up on this blog, but I don’t recall ever seeing anything remotely critical of Bush or Israel. Honestly, I would prefer to see all of our foreign aid cut off. Let that money go back to the American taxpayer who can then decide where his or her charity money should go. Why does foreign aid to Israel bother me more than foreign aid to other countries? Because most foreign aid goes to countries that need to worry about things like basic sanitation, clean drinking water, etc. etc. The money does not go to buy military hardware that inevitably gets used in a way that upsets the entire Muslim world. I’m about to go offline for a few days so I will allow you the last word. Best wishes, Contrarian.

If you want to get to down to basics, Israel, at least in theory, was founded by the Brits with the Partition where a section of the area was seperated, again, for the Arabs, and another section for the Jews.

What the Jews did, after WWII, was to assert its right under British Mandate and Partition and define its borders.

That is not terrorism. They did commit some terrorist acts, but, they, overall were not and are not terrorists.

Israel wasn’t initially supported by the United States. Initially we publicly chided them for their military actions. We didn’t support them much at all in the early years. I believe it was around the 6 Day War that our support for Israel truly began in earnest.

Anyway, the Palestinians wallow in a culture of death. The actively promote the eradication of Israel and cultivate the notion that suicide bombing is a good thing.

That is painting with a broad stroke, but the paint is of the right color and correct swath.

You can make the case, Contrarian, that our Revolutionaries were terrorists, yet I suspect you don’t subsribe to such a view, even though there is evidence that a lot what started the armed conflict against Britain was somewhat contrived.

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