Reshaping US aid to the Palestinians

[Coyote]

P

I originally posted this in another thread as a response...but it's intriguing enough to deserve it's own discussion. I adamently oppose the Trump administration's unilateral cutting off of all aid to the Palestinians. Trump has no Middle East plan - all he believes in is punishing people into submission without regard to human suffering. However, this article offers some good ideas on how aid could be structured more effectively.



Reshaping US aid to the Palestinians

With prospects for diplomacy dim, with the need to change reality on the ground to restore a sense of possibility, and with past lessons showing that assistance should be used to promote development and reduce Israeli-Palestinian friction, we propose three recommendations for Congress to reprogram the $200 million fiscal 2018 monies to create a more stable economic, political and security environment in Gaza and the West Bank:

First, use that assistance to take water off the negotiating table. In the not too distant past, water negotiations were zero-sum, given the limited supply of water between the Mediterranean and Jordan River. Now, due to technological gains in water desalination, water use and reuse, water negotiations are no longer binary trade-offs. Instead, they can focus on the much simpler challenges of distribution and pricing.

What could this mean in practice? U.S. assistance in Gaza can fund a small solar field to power the existing Gaza Wastewater Treatment Plant, build up the community-based solar desalination units piloted by MIT, expand the UNICEF solar-fuel facility in Gaza’s Khan Younis neighborhood, initiate additional phases of the World Bank-funded North Gaza Emergency Sanitation Treatment plant, and repair water infrastructure degraded by three wars. Water also is directly linked to electricity; progress in water and sanitation will yield a better, more predictable power supply. There is real potential for small-scale, renewable power throughout Gaza, supplying energy at the community level while minimizing the risk of disruption historically associated with Gaza’s power plant.

Second, U.S. assistance should be used to substantially expand trade between Palestinians and Israelis. Consider the northern West Bank city of Jenin: Israel decided 15 years ago that if it opened a crossing point so Israeli Arabs could shop in the West Bank, it would be a stabilizer, even though the Second Intifada rebellion was ongoing. That calculation was successful; increased Palestinian trade has reduced unemployment in the northern West Bank from reportedly 50 percent in 2003 to below 20 percent now. These robust trading channels have opened sustainable opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses, improved local governance and fostered broad-based security for Palestinians and Israelis alike. In 2003, Jenin was the center for suicide bombers during the peak of the Second Intifada but now is one of the more successful Palestinian cities.

The Jenin model is replicable. American aid can help establish similar trading zones in the West Bank city of Qalqilya where Palestinian traders, shopkeepers and small businesses can sell directly to the large Israeli Arab community a few miles away. The Jenin model also can work in Gaza: Palestinian textile manufacturers have relationships with Israeli designers and European markets; Gaza historically supplied much of the fresh fruits and vegetables in Israel. These relationships could restart in months with the sustained, predictable opening of the Karem Shalom crossing and additional trading corridors from Erez or elsewhere.

Perhaps most interesting is the nascent but growing Gaza tech sector, where Gaza Sky Geeks is incubating Palestinian start-ups and more established firms are initiating software development with tech firms in Israel and beyond. Israel’s tech industry has more than 10,000 unfilled jobs which could be filled from the surplus of high-tech graduates in the West Bank and Gaza.

Third, education is a key foundation for a better future. Israelis and Americans have long criticized the Palestinian Authority for not educating its people for peace. Why not engage American universities and NGOs to elevate the Palestinian education system and prepare Palestinians for a 21st century economy? Bard College has provided long-term teacher training at Al Quds University in which teachers and principals earn an American master’s degree in education and serve as leaders in their schools. Imagine if education programming and people-to-people funding allowed the best cohort of Palestinian youth to study in Israeli universities, intern at Israeli high-tech firms, and do residencies at Israeli hospitals. ​

Well, let us consider what our financial aid results in. For Israel it results in endless worldly contributions for better lives, some of which are listed on the thread "Israel: Helping To Make A Better World." And for Palestinians --- you tell us. Fair enough?

Thread isnt about aid to Israel.

But it is about financial aid to Palestinians. And you still have not told us what good it does for even the Palestinians, let alone the world.

The OP discusses ways in which it can be better utilized To aid the Palestibian people directly. I assume you read it?

The intent of aid. Particularly humanitarian aid is not intended to help the rest of the world and its benefits are not typically measured by the effects on the rest of the world.

 

[Coyote]

The US unilaterally took Jerusalem off the table.

The US did no such thing and even Trump claims so. What the US did was unilaterally recognize a sovereign Nation's right to choose its own capital in its own sovereign territory. Which is normative.

Unless you are going to try to argue that WEST Jerusalem is not part of sovereign Israel.

And East Jerusalem? Jerusalem is claimed by two adjoining factions, one of which captured the city in the most recent war.

He absolutely took it off the table.

He made a choice as to which side he would recognize as owning the undivided city.

Last I checked the embassy was in WEST Jerusalem. So how did he take EAST Jerusalem off the table? And where did he claim that Jerusalem is to be undivided?! He has actually claimed, clearly, to the contrary.

And its properly the LIBERATED city in war. The city was illegally occupied by a foreign power with no legal right to her (that would be Jordan). Whether it was Israel's or under the sovereignty of a non-existent but future state of Arab Palestine is irrelevant. The city was liberated from foreign control.

It wasn’t liberated, that is playing with words. There was no other nation in existence to lay claim to it.

Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish nation, longer than London of the English.
And it wasn't ever a capital of an Arab nation, the Arab occupation specifically built a separate city to be their capital instead of Jerusalem - called Ramle.
Why should Jerusalem be a capital of an Arab nation?

There're no games here - Jerusalem was liberated, the Jewish nation both holds the title legally and culturally, as a sacred trust of the civilization, anything else is antisemitic bigotry and insult to intelligence.

Excuse me for going off topic, I though it was crucial to make that point.
But this is probably an example of how Palestinian aid has become another politicized tool against Israel, rather than an effective tool for constructive development of the society.

That doesn't change that fact that money won't buy them Jerusalem, or an effective government, or change their failing priorities.

I am not going to argue who Jerusalem should belong to and whether whole or divided because that really is another topic. But the reality is both sides feel strongly and passionately about it, both have long standing populations there and religious and historical connections. Up until now negotiations have recognized that it was part of the negotiation process.

Money, in particular humanitarian aid buys lives. The intent of that type of aid isn’t necessarily to make political change, at most that is secondary.

The US gives humanitarian aid to a number of countries with corrupt, failing and problematic governments. And I haven’t heard much call for removing it beyond the context of “get rid of all foreign aid” type calls.

Palestine has been uniquely called out for “punishment” despite the fact that other aid recipients have similar problems. Again, if it were Israel, folks would be calling it anti-semitism and condemning it.

Aid CAN be restructured so as to benefit them more directly and encourage better government and economy. That is what the OP is suggesting.

 

[Coyote]

RE: Reshaping US aid to the Palestinians
※→ Coyote, et al,

Is there a strategy here at all? (RHETORICAL) Don't assume there is a clever plan or political strategy when there is a lack of a discoverable Middle Policy.

Each new president is a new negotiation.
What carrots did Trump give the Palestinians? Be specific.

(COMMENT)

The current White House is just playing at foreign policy. But really, when you hear any seriously intelligent question put to them on the issues that face us today, all you get is babble, orbiting around the issues by with no clear or straight direction in a circular running track.

The White House is directing its energies to a coercive prodding based on a "no choice" (empty set) political alternative. It is an induced situation to make it worse to see what response is generated out of the Arab Palestinians. If the Arab Palestinians simply do nothing in response, then they simply have lost their position with respect to Jerusalem. Unable to respond, the Arab Palestinians accept the default position that Jerusalem is the Israeli Capitol which makes the Israeli holdings sovereign territory.

There is no carrot for the Arab Palestinians. And as for the sugar in the hand we feed to the Israelis, it was just an early Christmas present.

What sticks has Israel ever really gotten? The US blocks them. Has Trump brandished any sticks to coerce the Israelis to the table?

I recall that Israel had pre conditions to be met...did she waive them?

(COMMENT)

Israel doesn't really have any negotiation pre-conditions other than that there be "NO" demands necessary to meet as a pre-condition to negotiations. The Israelis can sit on the status quo forever and it would not politically injure them. But the Arab Palestinians become ever more desperate as time trudges on. They are desperately trying to put pressure on the Israelis.

Most Respectfully,
R

Israel has preconditions for peace. It is de facto preconditions for talks because what is the point of talking peace if you have preconditions s for peace. In the it is the same thing.

 

[rylah]

Aid CAN be restructured so as to benefit them more directly and encourage better government and economy. That is what the OP is suggesting.

How?
I'm all for that....but
It's all too vague, in the meantime is see that this "US aid reconstruction" also means the use of Israeli markets and universities. Which begs the question that I've been asking since the beginning - at what cost?

How is it different from the crazy demand for Gazans to enter Israel during war in which they declare to "rip their hearts and drink their blood" - for j-o-b-s??

 

[rylah]

RE: Reshaping US aid to the Palestinians
※→ Coyote, et al,

Is there a strategy here at all? (RHETORICAL) Don't assume there is a clever plan or political strategy when there is a lack of a discoverable Middle Policy.

Each new president is a new negotiation.
What carrots did Trump give the Palestinians? Be specific.

(COMMENT)

The current White House is just playing at foreign policy. But really, when you hear any seriously intelligent question put to them on the issues that face us today, all you get is babble, orbiting around the issues by with no clear or straight direction in a circular running track.

The White House is directing its energies to a coercive prodding based on a "no choice" (empty set) political alternative. It is an induced situation to make it worse to see what response is generated out of the Arab Palestinians. If the Arab Palestinians simply do nothing in response, then they simply have lost their position with respect to Jerusalem. Unable to respond, the Arab Palestinians accept the default position that Jerusalem is the Israeli Capitol which makes the Israeli holdings sovereign territory.

There is no carrot for the Arab Palestinians. And as for the sugar in the hand we feed to the Israelis, it was just an early Christmas present.

What sticks has Israel ever really gotten? The US blocks them. Has Trump brandished any sticks to coerce the Israelis to the table?

I recall that Israel had pre conditions to be met...did she waive them?

(COMMENT)

Israel doesn't really have any negotiation pre-conditions other than that there be "NO" demands necessary to meet as a pre-condition to negotiations. The Israelis can sit on the status quo forever and it would not politically injure them. But the Arab Palestinians become ever more desperate as time trudges on. They are desperately trying to put pressure on the Israelis.

Most Respectfully,
R

Israel has preconditions for peace. It is de facto preconditions for talks because what is the point of talking peace if you have preconditions s for peace. In the it is the same thing.

Israel doesn't have preconditions for peace.
It has preconditions for passing security obligations to a likely failing fractured hostile government.
Asking for the other side to be eligible for representation is not a precondition, it's a basic logic of negotiations.

 

[RoccoR]

RE: Reshaping US aid to the Palestinians
※→ Coyote, et al,

I apologize. I missed it.

Israel has preconditions for peace. It is de facto preconditions for talks because what is the point of talking peace if you have preconditions s for peace. In the it is the same thing.

(QUESTION)

Put me back on track here. What precondition (de facto or otherwise) does Israel have as requirement for agreement to peace talks?

Most Respectfully,
R

 

[Mindful]

RE: Reshaping US aid to the Palestinians
※→ Coyote, et al,

I apologize. I missed it.

Israel has preconditions for peace. It is de facto preconditions for talks because what is the point of talking peace if you have preconditions s for peace. In the it is the same thing.

(QUESTION)

Put me back on track here. What precondition (de facto or otherwise) does Israel have as requirement for agreement to peace talks?

Most Respectfully,
R

Didn't we go through all this previously with Bill Clinton and Yasser Arafat?

 

[Sixties Fan]

[ This is exactly why direct aid to the Palestinians should stop. What other people in conflict with another do this? ]

Palestinian Authority Pays Terrorist who Murdered Ari Fuld $3,000+ Advance Payment!

 

[Coyote]

[ This is exactly why direct aid to the Palestinians should stop. What other people in conflict with another do this? ]

Palestinian Authority Pays Terrorist who Murdered Ari Fuld $3,000+ Advance Payment!

There are plenty of people in conflict areas whos governments do terrible things but they recieve humsnitsrisn aid. Why are the Palestinians being singled out?

 

[Coyote]

RE: Reshaping US aid to the Palestinians
※→ Coyote, et al,

I apologize. I missed it.

Israel has preconditions for peace. It is de facto preconditions for talks because what is the point of talking peace if you have preconditions s for peace. In the it is the same thing.

(QUESTION)

Put me back on track here. What precondition (de facto or otherwise) does Israel have as requirement for agreement to peace talks?

Most Respectfully,
R

Pre conditions for peace...not talks. But it is effectively the same.

 

[Coyote]

Aid CAN be restructured so as to benefit them more directly and encourage better government and economy. That is what the OP is suggesting.

How?
I'm all for that....but
It's all too vague, in the meantime is see that this "US aid reconstruction" also means the use of Israeli markets and universities. Which begs the question that I've been asking since the beginning - at what cost?

How is it different from the crazy demand for Gazans to enter Israel during war in which they declare to "rip their hearts and drink their blood" - for j-o-b-s??

How? Well whst do you think of the OP's suggestions? So far no one seems to be actually talking about them

 

[Sixties Fan]

[ This is exactly why direct aid to the Palestinians should stop. What other people in conflict with another do this? ]

Palestinian Authority Pays Terrorist who Murdered Ari Fuld $3,000+ Advance Payment!

There are plenty of people in conflict areas whos governments do terrible things but they recieve humsnitsrisn aid. Why are the Palestinians being singled out?

The Palestinians are the only ones who want to the destroy the country they started a war with.

They are the only ones who refused to end the conflict.

They are the only ones who insist on paying their Palestinians citizens and their families for murdering Jews or if they are killed in self defense by Jews.


When you finally can see the difference between all other conflicts and this one......

Let us know.

 

[Coyote]

[ This is exactly why direct aid to the Palestinians should stop. What other people in conflict with another do this? ]

Palestinian Authority Pays Terrorist who Murdered Ari Fuld $3,000+ Advance Payment!

What do otherpeopke in conflict have to do with it? You frequently point out that Israel is singled out when other nations do the same thing. I am making the same point here. The Palestinians are being singled out.

 

[Coyote]

[ This is exactly why direct aid to the Palestinians should stop. What other people in conflict with another do this? ]

Palestinian Authority Pays Terrorist who Murdered Ari Fuld $3,000+ Advance Payment!

There are plenty of people in conflict areas whos governments do terrible things but they recieve humsnitsrisn aid. Why are the Palestinians being singled out?

The Palestinians are the only ones who want to the destroy the country they started a war with.

They are the only ones who refused to end the conflict.

They are the only ones who insist on paying their Palestinians citizens and their families for murdering Jews or if they are killed in self defense by Jews.


When you finally can see the difference between all other conflicts and this one......

Let us know.

I think your bias is showing...

 

[Coyote]

RE: Reshaping US aid to the Palestinians
※→ Coyote, et al,

Is there a strategy here at all? (RHETORICAL) Don't assume there is a clever plan or political strategy when there is a lack of a discoverable Middle Policy.

Each new president is a new negotiation.
What carrots did Trump give the Palestinians? Be specific.

(COMMENT)

The current White House is just playing at foreign policy. But really, when you hear any seriously intelligent question put to them on the issues that face us today, all you get is babble, orbiting around the issues by with no clear or straight direction in a circular running track.

The White House is directing its energies to a coercive prodding based on a "no choice" (empty set) political alternative. It is an induced situation to make it worse to see what response is generated out of the Arab Palestinians. If the Arab Palestinians simply do nothing in response, then they simply have lost their position with respect to Jerusalem. Unable to respond, the Arab Palestinians accept the default position that Jerusalem is the Israeli Capitol which makes the Israeli holdings sovereign territory.

There is no carrot for the Arab Palestinians. And as for the sugar in the hand we feed to the Israelis, it was just an early Christmas present.

What sticks has Israel ever really gotten? The US blocks them. Has Trump brandished any sticks to coerce the Israelis to the table?

I recall that Israel had pre conditions to be met...did she waive them?

(COMMENT)

Israel doesn't really have any negotiation pre-conditions other than that there be "NO" demands necessary to meet as a pre-condition to negotiations. The Israelis can sit on the status quo forever and it would not politically injure them. But the Arab Palestinians become ever more desperate as time trudges on. They are desperately trying to put pressure on the Israelis.

Most Respectfully,
R

Israel has preconditions for peace. It is de facto preconditions for talks because what is the point of talking peace if you have preconditions s for peace. In the it is the same thing.

Israel doesn't have preconditions for peace.
It has preconditions for passing security obligations to a likely failing fractured hostile government.
Asking for the other side to be eligible for representation is not a precondition, it's a basic logic of negotiations.

Preconditions involved recognizing Israel as a Jewish state and cessassation of attempts to get international recognition through the UN.

 

[Sixties Fan]

Aid CAN be restructured so as to benefit them more directly and encourage better government and economy. That is what the OP is suggesting.

How?
I'm all for that....but
It's all too vague, in the meantime is see that this "US aid reconstruction" also means the use of Israeli markets and universities. Which begs the question that I've been asking since the beginning - at what cost?

How is it different from the crazy demand for Gazans to enter Israel during war in which they declare to "rip their hearts and drink their blood" - for j-o-b-s??

How? Well whst do you think of the OP's suggestions? So far no one seems to be actually talking about them

It is a good thing that the US and Belgium and others are waking up to what the Palestinians have always been about.

I believe that I have mentioned about the two countries before, as recent examples. More need to wake up and do the same.

Rewarding terror.
Encouraging terror.
Inciting their citizens to invade Israel, come in legally or illegally, and kill Jews.

If the Palestinians cared more about their people and aid, they would have come to the table and already make peace.

Instead, we are seeing them destroy the Rafah crossing, twice, refuse medicine, continue to incite on a daily basis for Palestinians to break into Israel, send endless fiery balloons and explosives into Israel .

What conflict is behaving that way?
Again, which government in the world is inciting its citizens to attack another country and kill its people, receive a salary if they are killed themselves or wounded, and its leaders never be made responsible
for these ideas?

The Palestinian population is indeed victim. But it is victim of the ideologies of Islam which so many of them embrace and will continue to embrace.

The Jews are not the friends of Islam, as far as Islam is concerned and must remain under Islam's control.

As I may have said before, there is nothing to worry about as far as the US and Belgium taking away aid from the Palestinians.

We still have Iran, Qatar, the EU and all others who will continue to furnish
anything the Palestinian leaders need to continue their war of destruction of Israel, and their absolute need to bring the Jewish people down to what they were before 1948. I do not need to explain the last remark.

 

[Sixties Fan]

[ This is exactly why direct aid to the Palestinians should stop. What other people in conflict with another do this? ]

Palestinian Authority Pays Terrorist who Murdered Ari Fuld $3,000+ Advance Payment!

There are plenty of people in conflict areas whos governments do terrible things but they recieve humsnitsrisn aid. Why are the Palestinians being singled out?

The Palestinians are the only ones who want to the destroy the country they started a war with.

They are the only ones who refused to end the conflict.

They are the only ones who insist on paying their Palestinians citizens and their families for murdering Jews or if they are killed in self defense by Jews.


When you finally can see the difference between all other conflicts and this one......

Let us know.

I think your bias is showing...

Is it my bias or your lack of knowledge about the subject?

 

[Sixties Fan]

[ This is exactly why direct aid to the Palestinians should stop. What other people in conflict with another do this? ]

Palestinian Authority Pays Terrorist who Murdered Ari Fuld $3,000+ Advance Payment!

What do otherpeopke in conflict have to do with it? You frequently point out that Israel is singled out when other nations do the same thing. I am making the same point here. The Palestinians are being singled out.

If you cannot look at the other conflicts and see a difference, than no words or pictures will ever make a difference.

 

[Sixties Fan]

RE: Reshaping US aid to the Palestinians
※→ Coyote, et al,

Is there a strategy here at all? (RHETORICAL) Don't assume there is a clever plan or political strategy when there is a lack of a discoverable Middle Policy.

Each new president is a new negotiation.
What carrots did Trump give the Palestinians? Be specific.

(COMMENT)

The current White House is just playing at foreign policy. But really, when you hear any seriously intelligent question put to them on the issues that face us today, all you get is babble, orbiting around the issues by with no clear or straight direction in a circular running track.

The White House is directing its energies to a coercive prodding based on a "no choice" (empty set) political alternative. It is an induced situation to make it worse to see what response is generated out of the Arab Palestinians. If the Arab Palestinians simply do nothing in response, then they simply have lost their position with respect to Jerusalem. Unable to respond, the Arab Palestinians accept the default position that Jerusalem is the Israeli Capitol which makes the Israeli holdings sovereign territory.

There is no carrot for the Arab Palestinians. And as for the sugar in the hand we feed to the Israelis, it was just an early Christmas present.

What sticks has Israel ever really gotten? The US blocks them. Has Trump brandished any sticks to coerce the Israelis to the table?

I recall that Israel had pre conditions to be met...did she waive them?

(COMMENT)

Israel doesn't really have any negotiation pre-conditions other than that there be "NO" demands necessary to meet as a pre-condition to negotiations. The Israelis can sit on the status quo forever and it would not politically injure them. But the Arab Palestinians become ever more desperate as time trudges on. They are desperately trying to put pressure on the Israelis.

Most Respectfully,
R

Israel has preconditions for peace. It is de facto preconditions for talks because what is the point of talking peace if you have preconditions s for peace. In the it is the same thing.

Israel doesn't have preconditions for peace.
It has preconditions for passing security obligations to a likely failing fractured hostile government.
Asking for the other side to be eligible for representation is not a precondition, it's a basic logic of negotiations.

Preconditions involved recognizing Israel as a Jewish state and cessassation of attempts to get international recognition through the UN.

Here are all the preconditions. I would think they are kind of common sense if the Palestinians were truly thinking of ending the conflict, one way or another, that some of those conditions would need to be met in order to show Israel that they are serious about ending that conflict.

Abbas rejects Israel’s new preconditions for peace talks

 

[Coyote]

[ This is exactly why direct aid to the Palestinians should stop. What other people in conflict with another do this? ]

Palestinian Authority Pays Terrorist who Murdered Ari Fuld $3,000+ Advance Payment!

There are plenty of people in conflict areas whos governments do terrible things but they recieve humsnitsrisn aid. Why are the Palestinians being singled out?

The Palestinians are the only ones who want to the destroy the country they started a war with.

They are the only ones who refused to end the conflict.

They are the only ones who insist on paying their Palestinians citizens and their families for murdering Jews or if they are killed in self defense by Jews.


When you finally can see the difference between all other conflicts and this one......

Let us know.

I think your bias is showing...

Is it my bias or your lack of knowledge about the subject?

You are uniquelly singling out the Palestinians and supporting removing humatarian aid when others do as bad or worse and recieve aid. How is that different than Israel being unfairly singled out?