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What Abbas Can Do

[Jerusalem Post] Editorial - Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayad said on Monday that he would be seeking a $5.6 billion, three-year aid package at a donors conference next week. Between the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 and 2002, the Palestinians received over $4 billion in aid, according to the World Bank. This amounted to $214 per capita, which is more aid than any other people in the world received. After the Oslo Accords dissolved into a terror war, the Palestinians actually received more assistance, and even more since Hamas' rise to power. Clearly, as Quartet envoy Tony Blair himself recognizes, any new money earmarked for the Palestinians must be tightly linked to crackdowns on corruption, to establishing the rule of law, to dismantling armed gangs and to economic cooperation with surrounding countries, including Israel. But even this is not enough. The PA that Abbas controls is still teaching, believe it or not, that the "Palestine"-to-be will be in Israel's place, not Israel's peaceful neighbor. On Nov. 28, the day after the Annapolis conference, official PA television broadcast a map of all of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza covered with a Palestinian flag. A month earlier, PA television repeatedly broadcast a song that described Palestine as including Jerusalem, Acre, Haifa, Beersheba, Ramle, the Galilee, and Tiberias [- all parts of today's Israel]. Abbas may not control Gaza, or even much of Fatah, but he does control his own official media. There is no point to throwing more money at him if he does not take minimal steps to show that these funds will not be put toward a state dedicated to Israel's destruction. Ending the incitement against Israel in the PA-controlled media would mark a vital step toward creating an atmosphere in which Abbas could begin to impress upon his own people the legitimate sovereign rights of the Jewish state and the consequent need to compromise with it.
2007-12-13 01:00:00
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