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Source: http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=16&x_article=3370
Palestinians Are Safer than Muslims Anywhere Else in the Middle East
(CAMERA) Sean Durns - Bassem Eid, the founder of the former Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, briefed congressional staff members on Capitol Hill on June 14. Eid called for greater economic cooperation between Israel, Jordan and the PA to help "the average every-day Palestinian." Eid said that most Palestinian Arabs are "seeking dignity, not identity." Their identity they have. What they lack is leadership that can or wants to build opportunities for jobs, education and health care. The concern for their individual and family welfare trumps any current attention to diplomacy about a Palestinian state. Eid noted that the PA has received "billions in aid" from the international community, including the U.S., but the authority has "failed to create jobs for Palestinians." He called corruption among the Palestinian leadership "big and wide." "If you ask Palestinians who Abbas represents, they would say himself, 'his wife and two sons.'" Eid added that if a Palestinian state were to come into being, the current state of Palestinian politics in Gaza and the West Bank would suggest that such a state would be repressive and undemocratic. Eid pointed out that "as a Muslim, as an Arab," he is safer in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than anywhere else in the Middle East.