Ironically, to help that nation with a high GDP and an excellent intelligence network in the Islamic world, perhaps?
In my view the root cause of the most of our problems in the region is our completely unbalanced support of Israel. Saudis by and large don't care about American troops on the peninsula, and virtually no one wants to return to the 7th century, but when bin Laden talks about the corrupt regimes in the region being puppets of the west (Saudi Arabia, Egypt) or the Palestinian diaspora, or the "Zionist conspiracy" people are way on board. Those issues get him support, not trying to play 7th century.
Feeding the millions of Palestinians in the PA prevents those millons from being so distraught that they ALL have nothing to lose, ergo they ALL want nothing more than to attack Isreal at ANY cost.
I would say that both intifada were results of that feeling of helplessness.
Basically, that's the same reason we give Egypt billions every year, BTW.
Carter bought peace from Sadat, who was a pimp. Sadat was telling his own people before leaving for Camp David that there would be no separate peace. He went to Camp David and made separate peace. His foreign minister issued his resignation papers in the US and flew home separately. Arafat told negotiators many many times that "I will not be Sadat."
We prop up governments (in this case remember that Hamas is ALSO a social system for feeding millions) that are at least somewhat moderate
I think this is an important point on Hamas. Not only are they a social feeding system, but the saying goes while Fatah officials were building villas on the Gaza coast, Hamas was distributing food and medical supplies as well as setting up free clinics and providing other social services. That is how they got votes, not because they blow stuff up.
Maybe some of us need to stop reading today papers which never give us a real picture of the complexity of this situtation and start reading some books which can fill in some of the blanks that make everything you read in the papers only MORE confusing because you can't understand things like why we give money to the PA and Hamas.
We need to read more international papers to get different perspectives. Read the Irish press, for example.
What? Do you think that if millions of Paleestianians were literally starving in the PA that world opinion would NOT blame Isreal for it?
I disagree here. Thousands are starving in Gaza and no one really gives a shit.
Isreal and its' number 1 ally, the USA do NOT want to be accused of committing genocide on the Palestinians by starvation
Again, I disagree. We don't care. Our politicians will play the antisemite card and the anti-America card until they shout down everyone internally. Internationally, we could give a shit. Our country will just veto the Security Council resolutions and pretend like it didn't happen. For example, see Nicaragua resolutions during the Reagan administration's conducting an international terrorist campaign using cocaine trafficking proxies in that country.