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What the PA Buys with American Money

(Jerusalem Post) Caroline B. Glick - Two weeks ago, a Palestinian from Bethlehem was arrested by the U.S.-financed and trained Palestinian Authority security forces, charged with "carrying out commercial transactions with residents of a hostile state." His crime was purchasing wood products from an Israeli community located beyond the 1949 armistice lines. His arrest is part of U.S.-supported Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's project to ban all economic contact between Palestinians and Jews who live and work beyond the 1949 armistice lines. Fayyad's measures come on top of previously enacted PA measures like imposing the death penalty on Palestinians who sell land to Jews. According to the Congressional Research Service, the PA is the largest recipient of foreign assistance in the world. According to Bloomberg, it received $1.2 billion in 2009 and will receive $1.8 billion by the end of the year. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who is expected to become the chairwoman of the House Foreign Relations Committee in the next Congress, responded to an announced expansion of U.S. aid to the PA: "It is deeply disturbing that the administration is continuing to bail out the Palestinian leadership when they continue to fail to meet their commitments, under international agreements and requirements outlined in U.S. law, including dismantling the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure, combating corruption, stopping anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incitement and recognizing Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state." It is impossible to prevent U.S. budgetary assistance to the PA from financing Hamas. Each month Fayyad transfers funds to Hamas-controlled Gaza to pay the salaries of PA employees there, in contravention of U.S. and international law which prohibits assistance to areas controlled by terrorists.
2010-11-17 07:58:46
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